Creative Combinations
Coming up with creative solutions is all in a day’s work for distributors in the promotional products industry. Hillary Feder, MAS, president of Hillary’s (UPIC: HILLARYS) has been churning out ideas for unique and memorable promotions for 26 years. Here are a few of those ideas for campaigns that have included products with sticky qualities.
Audience Participation
Feder often suggests using magnetic sculpture puzzles in promotional campaigns involving organizational change, which are “almost exclusively around people and how to balance.” To increase engagement, she has clients run a contest to “see how cool of a shape [participants] can create with the magnetic sculpture,” she says. Then the participants take a picture and send it to a pre-determined email address. The photos are posted (on an intranet or public website) so peer voting can take place.
Lasting Impression
To help a client with a training reinforcement campaign for users of their software, Feder’s team created a three-part reinforcement, with one part delivered after each training module. The three pieces were: a flexible USB drive, a flexible multi-port hub and Crazy Aaron’s putty that changed colors. “Using their heat-activated putty, and the fact that the putty is really flexible, helped send home the message and was unexpected after the first two types of products. Many recipients called my client, telling them about the things they were making with the putty and how cool it was that it changed colors,” adds Feder.
