Part of the blog assignment is to produce a response to a fellow student’s blog post and give my take on it, luckily it seems I tend to agree with other other students more often then not. Therefore this blog will not include any E-Passive Aggressiveness, but will include my friend Severin’s blog about getting free Molson Canadian, great idea … terrible beer, and free handouts in general.
When companies hand out free items they are doing 2 things, getting people to walk around displaying their brand and creating demand. Giving people your product in public allows for them to walk around and be seen with the product creates “Free Publicity” apart from the cost of the freebies. Most people would find being a walking billboard for a company a display of weak morals but if you have ever gotten giveaways in a public place you have been a billboard. Creating demand with giveaways works well when introducing a new product as a way to get consumer attention cause we all love free stuff. Though this will only be successful if the product is enjoyable to the consumer or you sneak something addictive into it.
When freebies are handed out location is as always important and again I have 2 reasons for it, receptive consumers and putting the human billboards in the right place. Picking a location with receptive consumers to your product is important to make sure they will actually take the giveaway and be seen with or consume the product, example; don’t giveaway bibles at strip clubs. As one of the goals of giveaways is to create human billboards for your products, handing out these freebies in a receptive market for your product, example (Again!); John Deere handing out free stuff in Manhattan wouldn’t work to great to promote tractors.
Awesome job discussing what “free” really means in marketing, nice work!