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Consumerism

Pointless promotions

I see a fair number of product promotions at Parliament station in the mornings. Yesterday they were giving out Lipton Chai tea, which was very nice.

This morning though, an interesting one: a promotion for A2 “double quality” paper. I think that was the brand name — obviously their promotional guys have let them down by not having a web site primed and ready and easily Googled in time for the stunt.

It was something to do with “double” though, because they had about a dozen promotional people in skintight jumpsuits, who would follow the people coming out of the station turnstiles, mimmicking them as they walked along. I watched bemused as one guy was jabbering into his mobile phone, unknowingly followed by one of these people with her hand up to her head, walking just like him.

Amusing? Yes. But does it make me want to buy their brand of paper? I suspect not. I know I’m probably not the target demographic, but I can only assume they hope the next time I’m in OfficeWorks or Penfolds or some other big stationery place that I’ll remember the promotion when I see their product. Otherwise it was a bit pointless.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

14 replies on “Pointless promotions”

Is it copying paper, hence their promotional people were ‘copying’ others?

Or is that too obvious?

Well done Rob and Spacehunt, I think you’ve both nailed it. Still, if one has to get this amount of help to recall the brand name, it obviously didn’t work for me.

I guess a really good way to stimulate sales is to ridicule people publically.

Or maybe not…?

There were people at Bond Street Tube station (London) handing out pink ‘stress’ pigs – ie like the stress balls you can get. The trouble is (1) they were a bit too soft and (2) they had some really weird chemical smell on them that came off on your hands. Not very stress-relieving.

One of my colleagues washed hers, which got rid of most of the smell, but left it rather soggy!

Can’t remember what they were actually promoting

There were people handing out ‘stress pigs’ at Bond Street Tube station (London) the other day – akin the ‘stress balls’.

The only problems:

1. They were a bit too soft for stress relievers
2. They exuded a horrible chemical smell every time you touched them. My colleague washed hers, but just ended up with a soggy plastic lump.

No idea what they were promoting…

They were promoting the Lipton tea at Flagstaff a coupla weeks ago, the vanilla one smelt nice but thats where it ends, wasnt game to touch the others……no amount of sugar would have helped…..

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