Marketers live daily with the adage that necessity is the mother of invention.
If they don't, their solutions to awareness, distribution or sales problems quickly become repetitive, bland and unimaginative. Therefore, innovation is a marketer's watchword.
Consider marketers at Lambert Pharmaceuticals. They put an obscure medical term, "halitosis," into widespread usage to promote Listerine as a mouthwash because the blunt term, "bad breath," was considered impolite and not appropriate for advertising copy in the 1920s.
Or think about the promoters of Chock full o'Nuts Coffee, who turned a static billboard in Times Square into a traffic-stopping advertisement when real steam started rising from the sign's coffee cup.
Not every marketer has the huge budgets of Lambert or Chock full o'Nuts, but every marketer can be constantly vigilant for inspiration. Brandweek magazine already has written about some "Bright Ideas of 2008" that might get your creative juices flowing.
Consider these:
Dark marketing: In the world of advertising saturation and skeptical consumers, some major marketers have gone dark, creating advertising campaigns in which the pitch is covert and the sponsor almost undetectable.
An example: For the recent Olympics in China, McDonald's created an alternative-reality game called the Lost Ring. Wired magazine described it as a great example of "real-world entertainment intended to reach hipster audiences that would ordinarily shun corporate shilling."
Web serial branding: Online videos are still new, but innovations already are appearing, including some soap-opera-like Web episodes. For example, Spherion, a temporary staffing company, produced a five-episode series titled The Temp Life for YouTube.
Its tone acknowledges the real-life problems temporary workers encounter. The tongue-in-cheek approach features Spherion's own employees portraying some over-the-top work environments.
Through the series, Spherion is admitting that some temp assignments are nightmares, but viewers are likely to get the message that Spherion understands the real world and works to find better-quality temp jobs for people who turn to Spherion for placement.
Text messaging in a big way: Motorola took saying goodbye to new heights — and width — in the Hong Kong airport. At light box signs in the check-in area, passengers were encouraged to take a photo with their cell phones and text a farewell message to a special number. The messages were posted within seconds on two large LCD screens, complete with Motorola branding, that were in sight of the family or friends who had dropped off the passengers.
For friends and family not making the airport trip, Motorola offered prerecorded goodbye messages from celebrities such as David Beckham that passengers could forward from their phones.
"This was a good example of how mobile (technology) can be leveraged to aid in brand awareness anytime, anywhere," said Laura Marriott, president of the Mobile Marketing Association.
Chocolate talksSome of my own clients have been innovators.
Did you ever wonder where hotel turndown service and a chocolate on your pillow originated? It was at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, a place that has been honing its hospitality since 1779. The confection on the pillow was a reminder to stop by the resort's Chocolate Shop and buy a gift for someone.
Ebonite International, a leading maker of bowling balls and bowling equipment, faced a challenge — getting prospective buyers to commit. The solution was Demo Days and a unique system for customizing ball fit that allowed bowlers to try the newest product before committing to a purchase.
Regardless of the size of your organization, there are ways to be different, to stand out and to be innovative in marketing. Necessity will put you on the right track.
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