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October 11, 2005
Ever Been Mailed a Frozen Potato?
In the never-ending quest to get attention in this age of information overload, we've been on the receiving end (and yeah, sometimes giving end) of some really "out there" mailers. Lots of them are really clever. Some of them not so much.
I was reminded of this by PSB's Sarah Voigt, who told me her husband (an IT manager) was mailed a damaged hard drive by a storage company a reminder that it's bad for employees to store valuable information on their desktops. Fine on the surface, but not exactly an item that you'd like to keep on your desk, and tossing them in the garbage is no longer an option due to environmental issues. Can't you just picture the conversation?
"Hey, Bert. We've got about 100 damaged hard drives from some old PCs. What should we do with them?"
"I know, let's send them up to Marketing. They might want to ship them off to customers."
Let's use this posting as a way to list "winners and sinners" on the interruptive mailer front. If you have one to add, we'll post it in the "comments" section (company names will be withheld to protect the stupid.) Here are a couple to get us started.
Winners:
- An annual "Halloween figurine" mailed to us by one of our design firm partners. One year it was a little wind-up witch. Another year it was a glow-in-the-dark skeleton. They're festive, slightly creepy in a Tim Burton sort of way, and fun to have sitting around.
- The "War by the Lakeshore" -- a mailing tied to the annual Housewares Show in Chicago for 3M's Scotch-Brite "Never-Rust" wool soap pads that featured a miniature boxing ring with a frying pan in the center, and 3M's nifty product "facing off" against the gross rusty old steel wool option.
Sinners:
- The press kit with the potato. One company that was touting a food product with potatoes in it decided to send a potato in a press kit. Problem was, it was the dead of winter, and the potato froze. Ever see a frozen potato? It gets kind of green and slimy.
- A box with a helium balloon inside that, when you opened the top of the box, the balloon would float into the air and the message attached to the bottom would be there for you to read. Two problems. First, in cold weather, the balloon would lose pressure and lie limp at the bottom of the box. Second, in warmer weather, the balloon would get stuck on the ceiling.
Looking forward to your stories...
Posted by Matt Kucharski at October 11, 2005 7:42 AM