Great Marketing Ideas That Almost Worked

The field of advertising and marketing is about making people notice the particular item or product in the best way. The purpose of marketing a business is to get people to purchase a specific item or service in a manner that makes them feel secure and content with the purchase.

Therefore, the role of marketers is to think of concepts that are appealing and attract customers that are the demographics for the item. To achieve this, they need to use their imagination to create creative and innovative promotional strategies. Sometimes they come up with ideas that are revolutionary and effective. However, sometimes, the outcome of a brilliant idea may be disastrous or even have products that aren’t expected.

Here are some marketing stories I’ve told to me by other marketers during informal “water cooler” talks. Each level will provide the specifics of various strategies that seemed incredibly successful, but because of luck or poor planning, they resulted in disaster.

I hope you’ll take pleasure in these stories as well as gain knowledge from them.

The Weather may not be Your The Weather is not always Your

Sometimes, someone has an excellent idea, and the only drawback to the concept is that it is based entirely on weather conditions. In this instance, the software company decided to purchase 7,000 golf umbrellas that included in large print its website’s address and their phone number, and tagline “bet on sports today”.

The concept was that instead of investing in the national TV commercials during a football match, they could have better advertising for a fraction of the cost using umbrellas.

The promotion would involve female models at all the stadium’s entrances handing out umbrellas to fans free of charge. The only issue was that the event was to take place on a day that was rainy. The idea was that when the rain started falling, the people would pull up their umbrellas for promotion, and when the TV crew would film the crowd, the company could get immediate television ads by opening the umbrellas!

In order to hire a team of models and a person who would oversee them was a task that had to be planned prior to the time. The company depended upon the forecaster to provide them the most suitable time to conduct the campaign.

On the day of the game, the weather was ideal for umbrellas, as it was cloudy and, as per the Weather Channel, the odds were 86 percent possibility of rain. All the umbrellas were distributed, and everyone was waiting for the rain to fall.

The rain didn’t come…

Remember to include Promotional Restrictions.

Contests and raffles are an excellent method to draw attention to your company or brand. People like to win and receive free stuff, which is the reason businesses and retailers recognize that it is an excellent method to win the heart of a customer. One department store located in Costa Rica decided to give pressure cookers to everyone who bought $50 worth of goods at their shop.

Someone from marketing took a look at the math and calculated that based on the shop’s daily sales, they’d need approximately 100 pressure cookers. The store’s marketing team was able to effectively promote the giveaway, making people aware of it through newspapers online, radio ads, and on the internet.

On the day of the offer, it was clear that the promotional opportunity was a big winner. There was a long line of customers waiting for the store to open on the day of the promotion to pick up their pressure cooker for free. Within a few hours, they’d been unable to get pressure cookers. That’s the moment when things got ugly.

The customers were clamoring for their pressure cookers, and unfortunately, the genius marketing behind the promotion did not include the disclaimer to protect the store in the event that they ran out of stocks as they did not have a release in place the store was forced to hand out vouchers for the pressure cooker later. The total number of pressure cookers they were able to give out was 432!

Although they received plenty of attention because of the campaign, however, it took them two months to receive the money they earned from the offer. The good thing is that it helped increase brand confidence in the business.

The lesson is to make sure that you are using the correct terms and conditions for promotional offers that include a disclaimer in case you do not want to finish with a minimal return on your investment.

Marketing a service or product can be lots of fun while simultaneously bringing brand loyalty and brand awareness to a company. Be aware that not all marketing strategies are effective. However, the chances of success can be enhanced by doing a thorough research and a well-planned execution.