When you’re winding down on holiday…thoughts of work are usually a million miles away – in the nicest possible way of course. But on a recent holiday to Sri Lanka the advertising world was right there front and centre everywhere we went.
Within a few days of arriving, my friend commented “What’s with these Munchee Super Cream Crackers? They’re advertised everywhere – do you think we should buy some?”
She wasn’t referring to the outdoor poster sites – of which there were many, she wasn’t talking about press or radio advertising…she was talking about store fronts.
Pretty much every town and village we passed through had some form of advertising hoarding being used as the store front. In the UK we’re used to our stores being brands in their own right and using their storefronts as a marketing opportunity designed to entice you inside. In Sri Lanka a store front heralds a totally different form of advertising opportunity for brands.
You may be thinking well so what? It’s just another form of outdoor advertising – which it is, but it brought a smile to my face…because within a couple of days we were all aware of the Munchee Super Cream Crackers brand – a brand which we’d never heard of prior to setting foot in Sri Lanka – and we even recognised the packaging when we ventured into a local supermarket. So very simple and yet a really effective form of awareness raising. In a time when things move at such a fast pace and we’re busy thinking about online/offline, consistency, conversion rates, brand messaging – on-brand/off-brand…it’s really refreshing to see something so simple in action and really heartening to see that it works so well.
Have you come across any simple but effective advertising or marketing? Whatever the medium we’d love to hear about it.
