A number of new ways are being used by people to reach out to the prospects. There are usual ways where people stick posters almost anywhere in a train advertising their services like earn two lacs in a month or loans within five minutes or advice on love, sex and what not and recently they have a found a new place to promote their services: Handles. New locals have transparent plastic handles where it is possible to push in a visiting card. I saw one Insurance advisor's visiting card nicely tucked in 4-5 handles enabling him to reach out to even those who were standing near the door and all this for free. At the same time there are some who have failed in their attempt to advertise even after spending money on it.
You must have noticed a huge poster of some well known Commerce classes just in front of Vidyavihar station’s platform. It is just a few feet above the ground and considering the height at which the passengers stand the poster comes right in front of you if you are standing outside. One may feel at this stage that the particular commerce academy has placed its ad in the right place but it is not the case. As whenever a train comes to the platform you would see people spitting paan on the posters. I had the privilege of seeing one guy spit right on the face of a student who was one of the toppers!! It is almost impossible to recognize the face of the students. Thank god I have never been a topper. Lesson: Make sure you put your posters above and away from people and not in front of them even though you are targeting them!
Even worse thing I observed outside Belapur station where somebody was giving away free copies of one of the respected newspapers. I am not saying giving away things for free is bad for publicity, in fact they are welcome! Problem here was that the person who was giving away newspaper for FREE was standing just two feet away from a newspaper vendor who was SELLING the same thing!! Company should try and avoid this kind of situation; the person should have been instructed about this. This is insult to those who actually pay money for that newspaper and that too just two feet away. Giving things for free may work in case of product launches or magazines like JAM or JLT which target youngsters and give away the copies of last issue (not the current issue) for free and people don't mind as it doesn't contain any current news but this can not be done with newspaper which loses its value the very next day. But this should be avoided with newspapers if possible and even if you are doing something similar to this make sure the ones who are paying for it are unaware of this! The worst part about this thing is that this has been happening for more than a week now. If I have subscribed to that newspaper I won't mind if it is given away for free once or twice. But if this goes on for a longer period of time than it just loses value.
You must have noticed a huge poster of some well known Commerce classes just in front of Vidyavihar station’s platform. It is just a few feet above the ground and considering the height at which the passengers stand the poster comes right in front of you if you are standing outside. One may feel at this stage that the particular commerce academy has placed its ad in the right place but it is not the case. As whenever a train comes to the platform you would see people spitting paan on the posters. I had the privilege of seeing one guy spit right on the face of a student who was one of the toppers!! It is almost impossible to recognize the face of the students. Thank god I have never been a topper. Lesson: Make sure you put your posters above and away from people and not in front of them even though you are targeting them!
Even worse thing I observed outside Belapur station where somebody was giving away free copies of one of the respected newspapers. I am not saying giving away things for free is bad for publicity, in fact they are welcome! Problem here was that the person who was giving away newspaper for FREE was standing just two feet away from a newspaper vendor who was SELLING the same thing!! Company should try and avoid this kind of situation; the person should have been instructed about this. This is insult to those who actually pay money for that newspaper and that too just two feet away. Giving things for free may work in case of product launches or magazines like JAM or JLT which target youngsters and give away the copies of last issue (not the current issue) for free and people don't mind as it doesn't contain any current news but this can not be done with newspaper which loses its value the very next day. But this should be avoided with newspapers if possible and even if you are doing something similar to this make sure the ones who are paying for it are unaware of this! The worst part about this thing is that this has been happening for more than a week now. If I have subscribed to that newspaper I won't mind if it is given away for free once or twice. But if this goes on for a longer period of time than it just loses value.
Coool Blog buddy... Now, u know the reason why I never wanted to be a topper ;-) As far as promoting the brand is concerned, I am not too sure if promoting for free can have positive results... Like the insurance agents visiting card u were talking abt, theres high probability of a college student taking it and calling as a prospective client, only to realize later that it was a prank call... Abt the newspaper campaign, I agree it was bad tactics... mainly for the regular newspaper buyers..
ReplyDeleteThere r other ways to promote a brand.. like having ur blog URL written after commenting on your friends blog :-P