Using stickers to build brand awareness works at all levels, even among high school students. Marketing website ScottsMarketplace.com tells the story of one enterprising high school student who promoted his brand by handing out stickers.
The report tells about a student who brought a stack of happy face stickers to his high school. He gave each of his friends some stickers. Without even being told, the friends passed their extra stickers on to their friends. Eventually, over 100 students sported his happy face stickers on their shirts.
Those students walked the halls as living billboards for this enterprising student.
Not only did the stickers build brand awareness for the student’s business, but they also created quite a buzz among the student population. Everyone wanted one. Students who didn’t receive stickers felt left out. This student was able to promote his business using a captivating image and using it to build excitement about the giveaway. Might the school itself get the idea that stickers can promote a school?
A much larger business, the Calgary Farmers’ Market in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, also used stickers to promote their business. Their innovative approach to drawing attention to their business, though, was much different than the approach taken by the high school student.
In the middle of the winter, the produce seller placed fresh apples on the branches of bare trees all over the city. On those apples were stickers that said, “Fresh all winter.” Who wouldn’t want fresh apples all winter long? Yet unless people knew they were available, they might not travel to the market to buy them.
Thanks to the market’s clever way to promote its business, people all over the city came out to the market to buy fresh apples during what is normally a slow time of the year for produce markets. Consider the possibilities when combining this idea with a Valentine’s Day promotion!
Another creative use of stickers to market a product occurred halfway around the world from Calgary: in the Netherlands. Marketing site GuerrillaCheeseMarketing.com reports how the Novo Cortex ad agency overcame marketing challenges to promote their client’s business, an online insurance firm.
Hampered by a tight budget, the ad team had to think outside the box. That they did. They used stickers attached to an easily-removable backing that used static electricity, instead of adhesive, to cling to surfaces.
The stickers, designed to look like big scratches and dings on cars, would promote the company’s business, insuring cars against the very scratches and dings that the stickers resembled. While expensive cars’ owners were inside their offices, the team attached these removable stickers on the cars. The marketing strategy worked. The online insurance company received over 7,000 views during three weeks.
Whether a business uses stickers in the conventional way, as did the high school student, or if they choose to create a buzz by a more innovative use of these handy marketing tools, as did the produce market and the Dutch advertising agency, using stickers is an inexpensive way to promote a business. Businesses who are short on money but long on imagination should take a long hard look at the value of these inexpensive tools to bring more customers in.
