I’m really big into studying promotional and marketing techniques that are used outside of music and selecting the ones that might crossover into the music industry. It can be like finding a needle in a hay stack but every once in a while you find a place that offers a lot of good ideas.
The first thing I’ve got for you is a youtube video show called “The Joe Show” where they basically run through a whole bunch of products that can be used as promotional tools.
For example this week was all about St. Patrick’s Day promotional idea’s.
Next I wanted to share with you something that I found would work very well in the music industry. It’s something that is very hard to do as a band because you often have little money and little resources but this is the story behind John Bello who made the small beverage brand SoBe so viable that PepsiCo bought him out for about $370 million.
(Via Successful Promotions Trend Report Vol 48)
How did he do it? Among the many tricks Bello used to build a grassroots following for the brand was a heavy dose of branded promotional products featuring SoBe’s now iconic lizard logo.
Now, a decade after Pepsi acquired his beloved brand, Bello is at it again with new brand Adina Holistics. To get his line of herbal elixirs noticed, he is going back to his old tricks – namely giving away plenty of branded products. This time around, he is leveraging his monkey logo and sayings like “Drink no evil!”
“At SoBe we gave away 400,000 T-shirts via our in-store offers over five years,” says Bello. Why do it again? “Simple logic: This is a consumer reward and continuity device.” Adina Holistics consumers can collect three under-the-cap “herbalisms” noted on tear-off pads to get a free “Show me the monkey” or “Got herb?” T-shirt.
The offer is “one point-of-sale piece that always gets put up because it is something that the store owner or manager is doing for the consumer; something for nothing compliments the store and the consumer gets a T-shirt as a bonus,” says Bello. “Most companies are too small or too big to make this happen. At Adina, it is job number one, all day, every day.”
As of press time, more than 5,000 shirts had been requested. “They are already being offered on eBay,” says Bello. “With slippage, that’s about 10,000 cases out the door just for redemption and a huge number of ‘Drink no evil’ advertising impressions.”
Part of the trick is having cool giveaways and a cooler logo, says Adina Chief Marketing Officer Bruce Burke. “We have an icon that appeals to young and old. It goes beyond just the beverage and lends itself to promotional products. People have asked for the file so they can screen their own T-shirts. Another woman wanted it tattooed on her back. We know we have a very nice symbol for years to come.”
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