I have wanted to write this for a while…
But it’s taken me a while to find the accompanying photos to finish this case study.
Many of you would have seen these fliers lying around the streets.
As a side note, the person behind these and the business has had quite a lot of media attention in the past.
Before I go on, let me make it very clear that I do not condone him or his business or his marketing or sales practices.
First off this is littering, which not only destroys the environment but also is a crime, not to mention his business or his marketing or sales practices.
I’m not making a value judgement on business, business type, business model etc.
I simply want to highlight, in an extreme example, how one could market when normal marketing channels are restricted.
I have helped market an adult product business, which I do not have permission to share their case study, so “Bikini Girls,” must to do as it’s in the public domain as illustrated by the filer.
Marketing with restricted marking channels is frigging hard!
But it makes you think outside the square, and usually, you can reach more prospects with far less money.
As another extreme example, you can get hundreds-of-thousands of impressions on adult entertainment sites for a penny.
Anyway back to the case study, they are always on strewn on footpaths.
They are never in flier racks.
I would speculate that this is an intentional marketing tactic.
First off it would be very hard to get these in flier racks as marketing platforms have strict policies about what they are willing to advertise.
Adult related products and services are not in that policy.
So by dropping them on the footpath the advertise gets around flier racks.
Second off, things that are dropped on the ground tend to appeal to peoples curiosity to see what it is.
Is it money?
Is it a love note?
Etc.
Especially if it has a woman in a bikini.
Unfortunately, sex sells as it appeals to the reptilian brain of all genders.
The risk with this is if a prospect picks it up, they have to reveal themselves.
In addition, if it is controversial enough, you can move from paid media to earned media very easy to get even more distribution.
In fact, this article is a case in point: the advertiser paid for the flyer printing and distribution, and now I have written about it because it is controversial enough and the advertiser has now earned extra media via me.
This happens all the time.
As you would have guessed, the key to making this type of advertising works is:
- An interesting image;
- An interesting headline; and
- Drop them.