Skin Cancer Awareness: Toe Tags

This awesome skin care awareness campaign required the stealthy action of trained guerrilla marketing soldiers to ensure it was caried out to perfection. On the hottest day in July, sunbathers in Zurich's largest park woke up to find toe tags on their feet, much like the type that adorn the deceased at the local morgue. The tag read: "Sun kills. Be sure to protect yourself with our sunscreens and other skin care products." This great guerrilla effort was picked up by the local media and received even more exposure. Good job all around - maybe next time they can give out free promotional sunscreen samples to get their customers hooked on the product.

Stop Or I'll Shoot (And Reactivate Your Perfume)

The promotional toy guns used in this guerrilla marketing campaign are actually a bit more functional than you'd expect at first glance. An Israeli company that makes a perfume that can be "reactivated" by a drop of water (instead of reapplying the fragrance), wanted to communicate this unique selling point to people on the street. Thousands of toy water guns were filled with imported mineral water (Israel places a high importance on conserving its water) and then left on the street attached to a sample of the perfume. Not only were the colorful water guns eye-catching, but they also provided a live demonstration of the perfume's ability to be "reactivated." Pretty cool product, great guerrilla campaign.

Quebec's Ice Hotel

Quebec's Hotel de Glace - an ice hotel - recently opened in Quebec City. A highly unusual project, it was without a doubt geared towards becoming a promotional tourism magnet, as long as visitors knew it was there and open to the public. Because the hotel itself is a sustainable business, its promoters wanted to keep their advertising similarly eco-friendly, and the ample snow available in wintertime Quebec allowed them to do just that - by coloring in their logo on the bellies of specially-constructed snowmen.

I've seen ice-based promotions before, but this is by far my favorite - it's completely on-topic (the hotel is made of ice, after all) and lots of fun. Who isn't going to pay attention to a mob of snowmen bearing a mysterious symbol? The idea of a hotel sculpted from ice practically sells itself, but for the tough customers, these guys should be able to do the rest.

[via DirectDaily]

Unwelcome Mat

Volunteers for ELEM, an Israeli organization that helps homeless youth survive and avoid trauma and crisis situations, needed a promotional awareness product for an upcoming fundraiser date. Creating empathy is a popular - and useful - way to encourage people to give to a cause, but most people with the money to contribute probably haven't been homeless at any point in their lives, so the volunteers used these "NOT WELCOME" customized mats to attempt to recreate the stark, hostile feeling of being unwelcome in one's own home as a teenager. The mats were placed over the tenants' own doormats, with information on the underside about ELEM and the upcoming donation date.

This is a pretty straightforward campaign, and I think it gets the point across well without attempting to tug at potential givers' heartstrings too much. I also like how they avoid knocking on homeowners' doors - so few people are receptive to visits from strangers that it would be counterproductive of the volunteers to try to talk their way into their wallets.

[via Ads of the World]