Wacky marketing stunts that worked!

Hello everyone! Hope your day has been as good as ours.

Recently, I was reading an article about some interesting marketing tactics that big companies have successfully executed. Marketing is all about thinking outside of the box, and here are a few examples of where this was done.

1. Maui Beverages
Because this company wasn't well known, their PR department suggested something fun to reflect what their company was all about. They changed their executive titles from "Chief Executive Officer" and "Chief Technology Officer" to "Chief Entertainment Officer" and "Chief Tasting Officer". Then, the company founders hosted an annual conference of food and beverage trade writers. They threw a huge island-themed party  where they gave out free sunglasses, and of course, free samples of Maui Beverages. Naturally, after all of this, the company started getting a lot of press coverage, which translated into big money. Their annual sales have gone from $6 million in 2004 to a projected $10 million by year's end.

Marketing Lesson: Don't pray for someone to notice your under-the-radar company. Be exciting and creative, and guarantee that people will.

2. Half.com

Half.com is a retail site with serious discounts on a variety of products. To promote the site, Half.com paid Halfway, Oregon, to change the name of their town to Half.com for one year. They gave Halfway $100,000, computers for the local school and other financial subsidies. This caught the media's attention and Half.com became very well known. Five months later, eBay bought Half.com for $300 million.

Marketing Lesson: Creativity works and money talks.

3. GoldenPalace.com
Online casinos are legally restricted from advertising in traditional media, GoldenPalace.com had got to be creative to grab the public's attention. They have done stunts that include paying people to tattoo their logo on  body parts to purchasing William Shatner's kidney stone and auctioning it off for charity. But their most famous stunt had to be when they bought a partially-eaten grilled cheese sandwich for $28,000. This pricey sandwich was special because the Virgin Mary's likeness had been burned into the bread. All of the big news networks covered the purchase, which was an advertising steal at under $30,000. After the purchase, they extended their publicity by buying the pan that cooked the sandwich and selling t-shirts with the image of the sandwich. The sandwich even went on a world tour and later sparked the GoldenPalace.com World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship.

Marketing Lesson: Sometimes being outlandish pays off. Just make sure that the marketing stunt fits your the character of the business.

Hope you all enjoyed these marketing success stories. Use them as inspiration when designing your marketing stunts. If you need some help, get in contact with us at sageedenmedia.com!