Guerrilla Giveaway: Condoms

If you have been watching a lot of TV lately, you may have noticed that a lot of the advertisers' marketing efforts is targeted at the 15-35 age group. The prevailing perception seems to be that this particular age group is most susceptible to flashy marketing campaigns and has the most desire (and disposable income) to spend.

Unfortunately, we (yes, I also fall into that age category) tend to have a notoriously fickle attention span. This onslaught of advertising has left many of us jaded, so to catch our attention, a marketing campaign usually has to be seen as being trendy and fashionable or clever enough to worm its way into our collective meme pool (for example: the Budweiser "Whassup?!" back in the late 90s).

There is however, another way to grab our attention and that is by providing a promotion that is relevant to our lifestyle. Whether or not people feel comfortable of acknowledging it...sex is quite important to just about everyone in this age group -- which brings me to the use of promotional condoms as a marketing tool.

I've seen various groups at college campuses using this promotion to advertise anything from AIDs awareness to upcoming local events, all with a good deal of success. Once people get over the embarrassment, they tend to respond with enthusiasm. It may make for an unusual, perhaps even controversial giveaway, but that sometimes works in favor of guerrilla marketing campaigns.