Archive for October, 2007

When good ideas go bad

Monday, October 29th, 2007

While shopping in Milton Keynes at the weekend, my wife and I were approached by promotional people from a well known electronics company.

They had a large promotional stand, to help them push a new electric toothbrush and electric shaver.

So, what was the main purpose of the stand – to get us looking at the product? Walk away with a money off coupon? Perhaps enter a competition to win one?

No. The promotional people had to try to get shoppers to brush their teeth or have a shave. In the middle of a busy shopping centre in front of other shoppers.

As you can imagine, they were struggling.

I can imagine how this idea happened. What may have started as a normal promotional stand encouraging sampling turned into a huge waste of money, as the company wanted to get people “engaging with the product”. I’m sure they thought they were being innovative and clever.

Too clever, I reckon.

A Heeley good publicity opportunity?

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

The last few days I’ve started to see signs in shops that Heeleys are banned.

In case you haven’t seen these, they’re the little wheels kids have on the bottom of their shoes. They use them like normal shoes, but then if they balance on their heels, they can zip along on wheels.

Sound cool. Where are the adult ones?

Any kind of change is a publicity opportunity. Shops have an opportunity to ban Heeleys but still be cool about them. Why not put on a Heeley distance competition (perfect for shopping centres)?

Bike shops can shout about the safety gear kids should be wearing.

There must be an expert somewhere that you can hire to show kids how to Heeley safely?

Genuine redesign or publicity stunt?

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

MediaGuardian today reports that the new owners of Mr Men are changing 25 characters for a new TV series. The changes include some of them swapping gender.

Is this a publicity stunt? Do you think they are hoping all us adults who grew up with Mr Tickle and Mr Bump will cause such an uproar that they will be “forced” into making a u-turn… in the process generating a massive amount of publicity for their characters?

Maybe. But the report says they are launching two versions of the new Mr Men website, one for the new characters and one for the classic characters.

Maybe this is real. Either way it’s great publicity… it’s been the talk of our office this morning (we’re looking forward to more modern characters like ‘Mr Bump & Sue’, the accident-prone Mr Man who falls over then sues the local council).

What’s the anniversary?

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

A common media feature is ‘X years on’: See this story on the BBC website today about it being 25 years since the Mary Rose… rose.

Look back at events that have happened in your town or marketplace over the last few decades and ask what anniversaries the media might cover. Then find alternative stories to give them.

What’s changed since then? What are you doing to celebrate? Are you going back in time? How have you learnt from the lessons?

Whatever you do, remember a feature piece like this will often be prepared weeks, maybe months in advance. So don’t leave it till the week before to get in touch.

Use publicity to save a Post Office?

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

180 Post Office branches have been named today as those chosen for closure. In total 2,500 may shut by the end of next year.

The BBC has today’s list here (it’s a PDF).

If your business is in an area named today, then why not gang up with the doomed Post Office to launch a publicity campaign to save it. Nothing will whet your local media’s appetite more than a load of local businesses ganging together against the Government.

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