NEW AND NOTEWORTHY TOOLS: JANUARY 2000
Gotta wear shades
Just when you thought there couldn’t be one more place to hang P-O-P, somebody opens a window. Insert-A-Blinds are window blinds that double as signage. Posters are printed in strips to fit the blind slats. New campaign? Replace the slats without taking down the blinds. Air Touch Cellular uses them in its 22 Atlanta stores to post hours, prices, and special offers.
BlindVisions, Alpharetta, GA, patented the product in August ’98. Ad agency reps saw them at a furnishings trade show and convinced founder Dennis Redic to pitch them for promotions. Marketers buy the blinds and inserts for each new campaign. Turnaround is two weeks; prices vary by size of order, but are as low as $10 per window for printing costs. Short-term leases available. More info: BlindVisions, 770-984-3299 or e-mail [email protected].
Outwardly mobile
Lots of marketers have taken to using their products’ UPCs as sweepstakes entries. What if you could take a scannable sweeps like that on the road, to a brand-sponsored concert, say, or the beach during Spring Break? Enter Mobile Scanning System, hand-held scanners that work the crowd. When Oldsmobile sponsored Rockfest last summer, it handed out “backstage passes” – scanners walked the crowd to read cards, then sent winners to Olds’ info booth to claim prizes.
Gold Media Group, Wichita, KS, introduced the system a year ago and has gotten scanners down to the size of a Palm Pilot. Marketers lease them for $400 a month per scanner (there’s also a 10-day rate), and arrange their own field marketing staff. More info: Gold Media Group, 316-683-5454, or e-mail [email protected].
The check is in the e-mail
First, marketers were paying consumers to read online ads. Now they’re paying folks to send them. Denver-based epidemic (yes, that’s the company name) launched “epidemic marketing” in November. Consumers register at epidemic.com for a user ID and choose the ads they’ll distribute. They can pick the brands, or the category, or let software choose for them. Advertisers pay a service fee to join, then per-sale commissions. Current advertisers include chipshot.com, BMG Music Online, and carprices.com. Senders make five to seven percent commission on sales generated by their ads. They choose a check (regular mail), direct deposit online, or a Web certificate to spend.
With 500 million consumers expected online by 2003 – and e-mail the runaway lead in online activity – the concept seems like it has decent potential. But does it leave the taste of spam in your word-of-mouth? Chief executive Kelly Wasner says no: “Ads are designed to be used in the context of mail people already send out. They may send out a few more jokes than they would otherwise, but they’re paid on sales, not the number of ads they send.” Epidemic has real-world info to track carriers, and any spammers get booted. More info: epidemic, 303-433-4200 or epidemic.com.
