A few days ago, our creative department received this box full of goodies in the mail at work:
Naturally, I opened it. People are more likely to open dimensional packages than regular envelopes — I am one of the 95% who fall into that category. But grabbing my attention is not enough. You may get me to open a direct mail piece, but you better pay it off, and pay it off well.
This particular package came from Alibi Music, a stock music house, which can come in handy for finding background music for radio and TV spots, brand videos, even hold music. The orange box is about the size of a jeweler’s box for bracelets, and holds: two stickers that say “I love stories,” an awareness wristband (you know, the kind that Lance Armstrong made famous many years ago) with the same “stories” message, a cute little business card, and what I believe is a toy rubber flail:
This is the real version, a favorite among Gladiators and the S&M set.
When you go to the website, the stories theme is tied together with not one, but two (trademarked!) taglines: Music for Storytellers™ and Music to Back Up Your Story™.
It’s very close to being a good piece (I did go to the website, after all), except for 5 things:
If you go dimensional, make it count. Don’t just shove a bunch of random stuff in a box and expect it to convert your target. Getting people to talk about what’s in the box is not as important as getting them to understand what makes you stand out from your competitors.
While Alibi may promote the love of stories, they seem to have a hard time telling the one story that matters — their brand’s.
Meghan miller
21 Sep, 2012 - 12:02 pmI wonder if they’ve been reading that classy, “50 Shades” trilogy.
Michelle Yue
25 Sep, 2012 - 09:08 amHaha Meghan… that is definitely a possibility.
Jonathan Parks
23 Nov, 2013 - 20:56 pmThank you so much for taking the time to post about ALIBI! My apologies for not seeing this earlier.
Our apologies for getting the creative director’s name incorrect. Most likely he was found on linkedin and had not updated his profile.
We aim to promote both novelty as well as our purpose of being a part of the storytelling experience that producers create. It seems to be a message that every major movie studio and advertising agency seems to have “gotten” since we have licensed to all of them.
As for being offended by a branded awareness bracelet… yeah… that’s more you 😉
Best wishes!
Jonathan
Jonathan Parks
23 Nov, 2013 - 20:58 pmPS the “flail” is a yo-yo.
Michelle Yue
10 Dec, 2013 - 12:55 pmJonathan, thank you for taking the time to comment. To clarify, I think the concept of storytelling is completely relevant to your audience. I just wanted to point out a few ways I thought your promotion could be even better. Best wishes to you too – I’m gonna go flail around my yo-yo. 😉