Non-traditional Advertising and Promotion Strategies

Consumers have to be reached. This is particularly troublesome when you take into account the thousands of messages that bombard consumers daily and work to clutter the marketplace. To cut through this mess, and to more effectively communicate and resonate with a target audience, marketers are inventing new and varied tactics to convey their messages. This is where non-traditional advertising and promotion strategies come in to play. By using such vanguard methods, marketers are better able to have their messages heard.

Detail: Special K and Politics

The advertisement below can be seen at a few bus stops on the streets of Paris. Now bus stop advertising is anything but new and thrilling, but the manner in which this advertisement was executed is particularly noteworthy. By using the clear, see-though glass and the noticeably small bikinis, Kellogg’s is subtly reiterating the message that Special K can make you thin. The campaign is also semi-interactive, as a few tourists took the initiative to get their picture taken behind the glass, displaying their proud new two-piece.


The banners gently blowing in the breeze around the church (pictured below) are promoting a particular candidate or agenda for political election. This is certainly non-traditional as viewed by American standards, where (at least outwardly) we like to separate church and state. Notice how well the flow of banners mirrors the curve of the building. This strategy certainly catches the attention of an audience who is already well saturated with messages for political campaigns.


Discussion

These two very distinct campaigns both share a similar characteristic: they attract attention. This cannot be overstated enough, as the advertising world continues to make its job more challenging by flooding the marketplace with countless messages. The Kellogg’s bus stop ad would work well in most settings around the world. It capitalizes on the universal theme of women wanting to look beautiful, and it does it playfully. While the political undertones of the German ad could not be moved internationally, the concept could. The installation becomes architectural by mirroring the church. The different messages (with a common theme) on each of the banners seem to represent the voices of a varied but united people. The orange stands out among the dull colors surrounding and grabs the attention of the viewer, aided by the movement of the banners in the wind. All in all, this campaign is impeccably executed and well-worth noting as a non-traditional campaign that could work well in an international setting.

Highlights

- for campaigns to work well across borders, they must capitalize on generally accepted or universally established themes that relate to the target audience
- political advertising is particularly monitored by the government, but this does not mean that ingenuity or creativity should be abandoned
- to cut through the clutter of a saturated marketplace, advertisers are turning to more avant-garde tactics to reach consumers, and with great success