Visual Marketing: 99 Proven Ways for Small Businesses to Market with Images and Design

57. Waking Up Your Brand with a Little Pillow Talk: Creating a Follow-Up Campaign That Makes Prospects Laugh … and Buy

How do designers dream up these concepts? DAAKE created a bright orange pillow with emoticons for “happy” and “sad” and sent them to clients. They selected a pillow because they wanted to signify “comfort” and wanted to give away something that would be kept. As a follow-up, they produced a two-minute video adventure showing the pillow in cartoon hijinks that would make the Roadrunner jealous.

Why It Works

The orange pillow seems outrageous enough, and yet that's just the beginning. Feedback from recipients of the pillow gift has been ecstatic. Many clients wrote asking for an appointment; one added, “My pillow is safely on top of my credenza—otherwise the cat in our office would shred it!” DAAKE hand picked 100 key prospects and delivered the pillow in a package with a brochure that asked, “Who is DAAKE?” If a client or prospect did not respond to the pillow, DAAKE would send them an e-mail asking, “Where is your pillow?” then attach the video that shows the poor pillow being thrown into a dumpster, donated to Goodwill, or being tossed out of a window. The adventures of the pillow are told to the soundtrack of an old Tom Jones song. The video promotion itself became the catalyst for DAAKE's prospects. Instead of broadcasting the video on YouTube, DAAKE decided ...