Any small business knows that marketing expenditures are hard to justify. The most cost-effective marketing is an idea that can be spread by word-of-mouth. It can engage Facebook friends, Twitter followers, local press, and national media. YouTube videos made with smartphone cameras and cheap props can generate as much buzz as a $1 million TV ad campaign. Staging the campaign at the right time, in the right place, can also up your visibility.
Lately, I happened to find a commercial of Heineken called “Walk in the fridge” which is a great example. “Walk in the fridge” featured a group of girlfriends jumping up and down and shrieking when they see the hostess’ new walk-in closet. In another room, the men have their own moment when they see the host’s walk-in refrigerator lined with shelves of ice-cold Heineken. Heineken then grew the viral tail of the idea even longer. In 2010, it built a walk-in fridge that it took to beer festivals, allowing groups to parody the ad and upload their efforts to YouTube. The company also created a longer video showing guys installing walk-in fridge in an apartment, with the box extending outside the building with no visible means of support.
This is a great example of taking one winning idea and finding ways to keep it fresh over time. And costs are minimal when customers who are shooting and uploading their own videos produce much of the effort. The success of this advertisement lies on the audiences’ preexisting stereotypes on masculinity versus femininity. The female characters in the commercial are shown to express their exhilaration in sight of a closet filled with clothes and fashion products, suggesting that fashion and beauty products represent objects of femininity. On the other hand, the men in the video demonstrate an equal measure of excitement when coming across a walk-in fridge loaded with Heineken beer. Heineken is delivering its message very clearly: “Beer makes men as happy as women do when comes to clothes and fashion”.