Thursday, December 21, 2006

A free marketing campaign? Where's the champagne!

New York City NY - The Newsday.com site has a story of a nice little courtesy campaign for the Christmas season being run by the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).

Partnering with the folks on Broadway to bring Dr. Seuss' Grinch character to the subways, the MTA is using the Grinch to remind people about simple common courtesy on the subways.

The people who run the "How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical" are offering a $10 MetroCard with purchases of tickets to the show and the MTA is offering free promotional mention of the show on the subway courtesy ads featuring the Grinch.

The lyricist of the musical provided three transit related rhymes in the Seuss style to be used for the MTA courtesy campaign.

What is extremely nice about this campaign is that it costs the MTA nothing as it is a trade of advertising between the MTA and the Broadway show. It is also a fun way to remind people to show some courtesy during the holiday season.

At most, any costs which are incurred by the MTA for the logistics of the campaign (printing costs and costs to place and remove the ads) will be a small fraction of the cost of doing this without partnering with the people at the musical.

The MTA earns itself a Laurel for this innovative and low cost courtesy campaign.

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