Foster Grant is the UK’s leading ready-to-wear glasses distributor and they’re just getting ready to reveal their fabulous 2008 collection. So what did we do? Well, since we can’t share with you some of the clients that we’re working on right now (well we could… but then there would be that whole “having to kill you” thing… and that inconveniences us both), we decided to get to work on another hypothetical exercise of wonderfulness and worked out a promotional campaign.
Now sight is an important business, and ironically, to chose a pair of glasses you don’t just need to know what they look like. Oh no no. Glasses are no longer simple tools for reading. They’re a statement and a revelation about a person’s individuality; their style, their status. They are an important decision as they are what people see when they see us. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then a pair of glasses are the curtains, and boyOHboy there are a lot of curtains out there, not to mention blinds. Thick rimmed, thin rimmed, rim-less, metal, plastic. Oh my. Luckily for the consumer though, with our buzz and guerilla marketing activity, we could just save them the decision of WHICH retailer to buy their glasses from because we’d ensure that Foster Grant was all anyone would be talking about.
It is possible to approach the marketing of these glasses very softly – the experiential side of it means there’s no need for the hard sell. Secondly, it is possible to encourage this same consumer to interact with the product during this marketing work (this is all filed under experiential). Finally, and importantly (at least the accountants will tell you so), it is eminently possible to get this done cheaply but with maximum effect (guerrilla).
We would embark on a campaign whereby we would leave cased pairs of the reading glasses in cases in libraries, cafes, trams and trains across the country. These brand new spangly cases would contain two things. One, would be a pair of fabulous FG glasses, the other would be a note to the finder giving them two options – either they could keep the glasses they had found (and use an attached voucher to swap the found pair to the correct strength required) OR they could return the glasses to an address in the relevant city for a goody bag and entry into a competition to win a very special prize: two pairs of Foster Grant specially fitted sun readers and a holiday to somewhere gloriously sunny to use them. How very fitting (punn intended). *chuckle chuckle*
Our experience confirms that the buzz generated from such a campaign would spawn a great deal of positive media coverage as well as a great response from the public… and that’s before we’ve even gotten to a more traditional marketing campaign involving media partners in print media and radio (e.g. DJ led challenges to find sets of glasses that have been hidden in public places in order to win prizes) because there’s nothing wrong in adding traditional marketing to run alongside experiential campaigns, nothing at all!
Alternatively we could identify evangelists for the brand. Essentially we ask people to tell us why they want a pair of FG glasses… and then the ones who rave about them the most… quite simply get a pair. There’s no fancy who-har about this, but we’re identifying the people who, once they’ve got a pair of FG glasses in their hands (or on their nose) will really rant and rave about how great FG is and the story behind them getting their mittens on a pair of their lovely readers.
So anyway, that’s how we’d do it… more next week!