Urban Legends Reference Pages: Business (Bihn Label)
Would you purposefully put something on your label or packaging to get people talking about your product? If you wouldn’t, you aren’t interested in getting the most buck for your marketing buck.
Tom Bihn Inc. decided to have a little fun with their care labels by putting something in the French part of the label that isn’t in the English- you can read their reply on the Urban References Page above- but the translation is something like: “we’re sorry our president is an idiot, we didn’t vote for him.”
I’m not going to make a guess if this is about President George W. Bush, or the company president “Tom Bihn” as the company claims- but, it has made it onto the Urban Legends Reference page (snopes.com) where people go to check out if an e-mail is a hoax or not.
Now, I’m writing about this in 2006, and the answer about this tag was answered in 2004- so you can see, a good stunt can keep working long after the initial buzz is over. There are people who probably would never buy a Tom Bihn bag because of the label, and there are others that absolutely would- but, here is the zinger- this little stunt probably made more people go look up Tom Bihn than could have possibly be accomplished any other way for a lot less money than a conventional ad campaign. That, my friend, is the premise of both a guerrilla campaign and a viral campaign- and that’s the kind of advertising we at The Next Wave like (make that love).
What do you think?
I think it’s great!
How can I get a great guerrilla campaign going to attract people age 55 and over to visit our website, visit out model homes, tour one of the best active adult communities in the Miami Valley and even buy a home if we fit their needs?
I need everyone in the Miami Valley AND across this great country who is either approaching age 55 or past 55 to know what our lifestyle, our homes and our community is all about.
Oh and BTW, I only have a couple hundred dollars budgeted for such a campaign!?:)
Rob
Well Rob-
You either realize that you don’t have the skills to pull something like this off- and hire someone who does, or you think of something brilliant on your own. Unfortunately, the people who are really good at this- like to eat and get paid for their ideas.
And- you don’t have to put your url in your post- your name links to your site.