Marketing Stunts That Made Headlines

Ever wondered how some brands capture massive attention without spending a fortune? In this episode of the Promo Playbook, host Charles welcomes guest Anil, a veteran entrepreneur from the early dot-com days who brings rich experience from multiple successful technology ventures.

The conversation unveils brilliantly simple yet effective marketing tactics that challenge conventional thinking. Anil reveals how one Australian telco achieved years of free television exposure by positioning a costumed mascot strategically in front of broadcast cameras at auctions – gaining priceless visibility without spending a dollar on advertising. Meanwhile, Charles shares IKEA's ingenious campaign that recreated iconic living rooms from beloved TV shows like Friends and The Simpsons, creating an instant emotional connection that spread organically across social media platforms.

Perhaps most fascinating is the story of an SEO company that hired models dressed as nurses to offer "health checks" at an industry expo – a tactic that unexpectedly generated newspaper coverage debating advertising ethics. 

The discussion culminates with a counter-intuitive insight about promotional timing: while most companies cluster their client outreach with Corporate Gifts, Staff Gifts and Promotional products during year-end festivities, strategic mid-year promotions often achieve greater impact when recipients aren't overwhelmed with competing messages. 

Whether you're running a small business or managing corporate marketing, these real-world examples demonstrate how creativity, timing, and understanding audience psychology can transform your marketing effectiveness without breaking your budget.

Ready to make your brand impossible to ignore? Connect with us on your preferred social platform and subscribe for more insider strategies on the Promo Playbook. What unexpected marketing tactic will you try next?

Find out more and visit our website: https://www.cubicpromote.com.au/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the next episode of the Provo Playbook by
Cubic Promote.
Today I've got my lovely guest,Anil.
Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me,Charles, my pleasure.
So a bit about Anil.
He's got a bit of a pedigreewhen it comes to business.
Would you like to just brieflyintroduce to the audience a bit
about what you've done in thepast?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, sure, charles.
Look, I started off in theearly dot-com days back in the
mid-90s 1996.
I've started a couple of my owntechnology companies and have
been quite successful in sellingthose to some very large
organizations.
I've also worked for otherfast-growing organizations in
the technology space as well.
So I actually have seen quite alot of different techniques

(00:41):
used to get an audience'sattention in the current
landscape of what's going on interms of social media and that
brings us to this episode.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
This episode, we're going to focus exclusively on
marketing, specificallymarketing tactics, techniques,
even stunts, and we'll just goover some of the more
interesting things we've seen inour lifetimes.
So Anil marketing, when itcomes to just purely getting
people's attention.
What are some of the mostinteresting things you've either
seen in the past or perhapsdone in the past?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, look, I've seen quite a lot.
Two particular instances thatcome to mind, Charles.
But what was quite interesting,in several years I saw a very
high-profile, well-known Tier 2telco advertising and what they
did is they actually had aperson stand there right next to
the auctioneer in front of thecamera, so they were highly
visible scene and they had a bigsuit on which represented the

(01:31):
company's logo and I won't saythe name, but, for example, tele
choice or something along thoselines and the person was just
standing there as the cameracame on.
He was looking around.
Sometimes he was jumping up anddown and bopping his head and
turning around, but he was onthere for several years in a row
.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So was he literally dressed like a mascot, or did he
simply have the clothing in thecolor scheme of the brand?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
No, it was a full mascot, just like the mascots
that your company has done,Charles, for other companies.
Amazing, and that was quiteinteresting.
It always stuck in my mind likethey don't have to pay for the
advertising.
They just pretty much standthere in front of a camera where
they know a TV camera is goingto be, which with a very large.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
So simple and so smart.
Yeah, it's so effective,especially nowadays where it's
all about brand recollection,where people simply need to be
exposed to a brand many times inorder for it to stick in their
mind that that brand is the bestfor any given service.
I've seen a couple ofinteresting ones myself as well.
One of the more interestingones was, a couple of years ago,

(02:30):
ikea did a global launch wherethey used some of their
furniture, but instead of justtaking a regular pictures of
someone's well-manicured livingroom bedroom, what they did?
Instead they use iconic TVshows TV shows such as Friends,
sitcom, the Simpsons, evenStranger Things and a few other
shows and they used thefurniture to create the living

(02:53):
room of those shows.
And visually it was spectacularand, as you can imagine, a lot
of people latched onto thesephotographs because they were
also humorous.
It appealed to each and everyaudience within that show.
Perhaps you're a fan of theSimpsons.
Then you will want to see whatthe Simpson living room looks
like with an IKEA interpretationJust went like hotcakes through

(03:13):
social media, with peoplesharing the videos, sharing the
pictures.
I thought that was a brilliantidea.
Were there any other instancesin the past that you would
recall that you thought, wow,that was a bloody good idea,
either by myself or any othercustomer that you've seen
outside in Australia.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yes, look, absolutely , Charles.
There are quite a few, but thenext one I'll share is one that
comes to mind.
There is a large yearlyconference on in Australia
called the Online Retailer Expo,which is essentially an
exposition down here at the ICC.
That's coming up this year aswell.
It's coming up next month, Julythe 24th.
Yes, time flies.
It's July the 24th, I believe,and so the company that I was

(03:50):
working for at the time.
They were offering a SEO healthcheck service.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
For those who don't know, SEO stands for Search
Engine Optimization.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
It's to enable people to be more visible on Google,
bing and other search engines,and the idea of the SEO health
check was to gain interactionand engagement with new
customers and essentially givethem a free health check to see
what their existing provider isor isn't doing wrong.
Now, the interesting thingabout this campaign is the
company actually hired twomodels and they dressed them up
in nurses uniforms withstethoscopes and they
essentially were walking aroundto the crowd that were passing

(04:30):
by saying get your free healthcheck, almost like going and
getting a health check at adoctor's clinic.
Now it was quite interesting.
The company and I'll say we,because I was working for them
at the time in a different area-the interesting thing is we got
exposure in all of thenewspapers and I think one of
them very close to the frontwith articles.

(04:50):
Various articles were writtenalong the lines of advertising
and sexism, Rightly or wrongly.
The fact of the matter isseveral newspapers were talking
about the company and they gotfree advertising, free exposure,
and I found that extremelysmart.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
That is a really good idea, but sexism it could
actually have gone both ways.
Hypothetically, you could justhave easily gone from both male
models and female models, appealto every demographic out there,
or almost every demographic outthere, and still have the same
results, simply because it'sequal opportunity.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Absolutely, charles.
I think the problem at the timewas getting the models at the
last minute, and there are a lotof female models available
through the different agencies,and the male ones were somewhat
harder to get.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Did you have any tracking after the event to see
how successful it was?
But I could imagine just from apurely branding point of view.
When it comes to branding, itis incredibly hard to track how
many eyeballs actually buildyour brand, but did you have any
tracking to see whether therewas an uptick of as a result of
that?
Did you see any?
Any difference at all?

Speaker 2 (05:54):
well, charles.
Certainly on the event, thatwas very successful in terms of
getting customers attention forengagement.
I don't think I could honestlyanswer what that specific
marketing scheme in regard tohaving dressed up as opposed to
just having normal staff there,but it certainly got our name
out there and got us noticed.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Brilliant.
I've got a final story to shareas well, and this is just more
of a general marketing tactic,and it's a tactic that we
utilize ourselves.
So during the course of a yearJanuary through to December a
lot of businesses, organizationsthey would typically start the
year and then they'll end theyear with a mighty big bang and
at the end of the year therewill likely be end of year
parties, there'll be gifts forclients, gifts for staff, and

(06:36):
that's all brilliant and stuff,Until a friend of mine who's
also a business owner, he saidto me Charles, why are you
promoting to your clients andyourself?
Why are you sending out allthese corporate gifts and all
these promotional gifts at theend of the year, when everyone
is frantic at work, receivingmultiple parcels from multiple
locations and multiple people,when you should really be doing

(06:57):
it at the middle of the year,June, July, that's the time when
a lot of people would not quitebe as busy.
That will have a lot of time,and when they do receive
something, it'll become a lotmore memorable.
So, not so much a marketingstunt or a tactic, but timing,
in my mind, makes a bigdifference.
Just to time when to promote anactivity.
Don't time it when everyone isdoing it at the same time.

(07:20):
Time it at a quiet time.
No matter what your industry is, there will be a quiet season,
depending on what you do, andthat's the time to actually
execute.
How do you feel about thetiming when it comes to?

Speaker 2 (07:34):
marketing stunts and marketing activities.
Look, absolutely.
It's a good question, charles,and it's extremely important to
pay attention Whether it beorganizations that have peak
seasons and off seasons.
It might also be well, forexample, things like schools and
universities.
If we were a company selling toschools and universities, we
need to be very well aware ofwhen the student enrolments.
For example, aged carefacilities.

(07:55):
We find a lot of aged carefacilities like to give their
residents gifts around Christmas, so we would typically start
marketing to them around theSeptember, october months, so
that way they could be aware ofus, they could reach out to us.
We could go back and forth fora few weeks.
We could obtain a purchaseorder and then get goods
delivered prior to in Decembersometime.

(08:17):
So there'll be enough time toget the delivery.
There's no point in us startingto advertise to them with our
budget in January, february,march for gifts, when typically
those gifts are given out inbulk towards the end of the year
.
So it's very important to breakdown any marketing budgets that
one might have to get them sentout in various stages.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yes, timing matters Well.
Thank you, Neil, Reallyappreciate you being on this
episode For the audience outthere.
Please connect with us on yoursocial media of choice.
We'll have all the relevantlinks.
Please stay tuned for the nextepisode of the Promo Playbook.
Thank you so much.