An interview with Dean Rotbart from Monday Morning Radio
Dean Rotbart, a Pulitzer nominated writer and former Wall Street Journal reporter, talked with me about making events persuasive.
Also, be sure to download my "8 most common mistakes in persuasive event planning."
Morty Silber, CEO
Mad Strategies Inc.
a Wizard of Ads Partner
One SWEET deal!
Instead of returning or re-gifting your unwanted holiday gifts, why not trade them for something useful, like candy? A survey conducted by the marketing team at Wrigley Canada estimated that nearly 75% of Canadians have at some point in their lives received a bad holiday gift. This gave the people at Skittles an idea that would allow consumers a whole new way to "taste the rainbow".
In 2015, the candy company opened up a "Holiday Pawn Shop" in Toronto and invited the general public to exchange their unwanted holiday gifts for bags of the colorful candy. The store opened for only 5 days and was hugely successful! Items collected were donated to the Goodwill ReUse Center in Scarborough, Ontario.
“Not only a Canadian original, but it’s an original idea that’s
never been done anywhere else in the world,”
-Dan Alvo, director of marketing at Wrigley Canada.
To give you an idea of just how successful this marketing campaign was, here is an excerpt taken from the case study conducted by Mediacom.
"The campaign earned a staggering 100 million free media impressions, including coverage from Canada’s top five broadcasters.
During the five days the shop was open, thousands of customers traded unwanted items for more than 52,000 bags of Skittles, making it Wrigley’s largest-ever sampling event.
More than 3,300 items were collected and donated to one of Canada’s largest charities.
We achieved over 100 million impressions, 51,798 website visits and 2,720 visitors to the pawn shop."
Skittles wanted to increase sales as well as their consumer's awareness during the holidays. They needed to come up with an idea that would stand out among all the other holiday ads and compete with traditional holiday candy. In the end, they managed to increase sales by 4% (2% over their target). By combining their brand with a pinch of fun, a dash of generosity and whole lot of unexpected treats, Skittles managed to produce one of the best holiday marketing recipes ever created!
What unexpected "treats" can you offer your consumers in an effort to stand out from the crowd?
Morty Silber, CEO
Mad Strategies Inc.
a Wizard of Ads Partner
Turn a customer deterrent into a traffic booster.
January and February are typically difficult months for winter clothing retail stores as sales decrease and stores try to get rid of their remaining winter stock. Mark's Work Wearhouse didn't want to have just another end of season sale among a plethora of other seasonal deals. They wanted to come up with a creative way of breaking through the advertising clutter.
Mark's figured out how to use cold weather to their customer's advantage and came up with "The Colder it Gets" campaign which offered discounts equal to the daily low temperature. A daily low of -15 degrees translated into 15% off at retail stores. The colder it got, the better the discount. A partnership with the Weather Network enabled Mark's to post the temperature in real-time on programmable displays such as screens outside bus shelters and highway billboards and updating that number in in-store cashier systems.
In a case study conducted by the OMAC (Out-of-Home Marketing Association of Canada) the campaign was a success and it states:
"The flagship stores in Toronto experienced a 21% increase in comparable sales from the previous year, surpassing the original goal of 10%. The 21% increase was 13% higher than non-participating Ontario Mark’s stores and nearly four times greater than the national category norms, which came in at only 4.7% during the month of February."
The campaign was a unique approach to get customers outside on even the coldest of winter days. Their innovative use of real-time data earned them a bronze in the creative data category of the Cannes Lions awards. Out of 715 submissions, 73 made the shortlist and Mark's took home third place.
Although the campaign was only tested in Toronto and Montreal, Mark's hopes to expand this idea into other large cities using other real-time data like rain or snowfall to determine the day's in-store discount.
Mark's real-time weather ad campaign on a transit shelter.
We saw it here in Montreal as well under Mark's French name "L'Equipeur".
What limiting factor can you turn into a sales catalyst?
Morty Silber, CEO
Mad Strategies Inc.
a Wizard of Ads Partner
