Inflatable Gorillas?

I can hear Oz’s Wicked Witch now: Don’t make me send my inflatable gorillas. My outsized Elvises. My fat yellow duckies. Nevertheless, while we’re trying to recover from the effects of the Ike, so is Jim Purtee.

A Sandra Bretting article in today’s Houston Chronicle, identifies Purtee as the owner of Houston Balloons & Promotions LLC. And sure enough, there he is on the company website.

He’s the marketer who makes certain there’s an inflatable pink gorilla or an immense Yosemite Sam-like figure on top of every car dealership, tanning salon and independent insurance agency between Texas and Florida. (You can see the full line-up, gorillas, ducks and all, here – hurry before they’re gone.)

As the article points out, Purtee’s company earned some $1.2 million from 400 inflatable balloons and banners – all in support of small businesses. Purtee makes a good point about it: Small-business owners can’t afford to create and run radio or TV commercials. But for about $1,200 they can get four weeks’ worth of drive-by attention with, say, a 30-foot luchador complete with mask.

While the Ike cost Purtee about a million bucks worth of business, the City of Houston would like to cost him his entire livelihood. It wants to ban the entire category of cold air inflatables from our highways and byways. So this is a billboard controversy…only with really strikingly ugly (or charming) balloons.

It’s no secret how Houston feels about large-scale outdoor advertising: Utterly indecisive.

No matter what side you take – beautification of our city’s highways or freedom for free enterprise – someone’s going to be upset. Is the government right to ban this form of outdoor?

Professionally, I wonder about the medium’s effectiveness. According to the only US trade group, the Inflatable Advertising Dealers Association, “The products of IADA members command attention, standing out in the crowd of other advertising messages. They increase the visibility of your business, promote name recognition and aid in brand awareness.”

Absent real metrics (documented increases in walk-in traffic, for example), I take the IADA claims with a pound of air. Furthermore, most of the inflatables are so…banal. (That’s one of Purtee’s appeals, I think: Generic inflatables that are cost-effectively repurposed from real estate agent to discount furniture store.)

While seeing a big blue elephant on an NTB store is whimsical, I confess to being puzzled by the large purple coyote (I think) appearing for CITGO. Appearances by a random selection of generic critters, all 20-30 feet tall, is silly.

When an inflatable is strikingly designed or fits an unusual purpose, I know it can have a heck of an effect. Swiss ad agency ET&H created a giant, three-dimensional inflatable of its client Tilsiter Cheese’s logo years ago: Two dairy cows side-by-side. Quite striking and much used throughout Europe. it rightfully generated a huge amount of attention. (The cheese company has since turned to an ordinary hot air balloon, something of a letdown.)

Since Purtee is litigating with the City, I wonder how the courts will rule. Purtee maintains that it’s his right to deliver an advertising tool like his giant inflatables “as long as it’s not vulgar or untrue.” I suspect – no, I damn well know – that we’re into the realm of the subjective. As the article inquires, how will the green gorilla atop a cellular telephone store be perceived?

Is beauty, or cleverness, in the eye of the beholder? Or the inflator?

Green(er) Cup

If, with three sentences on a slip of paper, I could help you turn your company just a little “greener,” would you be interested?

You can do it if you make insulated travel tumblers available to your employees and customers as one of your corporate ad specialties. The one in the photo above is a stainless steel model…but after all these years, there are literally hundreds of styles, all built on the same general principles: a hand-sized container with [a] double-wall vacuum insulation and [b] a firm-fitting, non-spill top or lid with [c] a slide opening.

Here are my three sentences (and see four spiffier options below):

Use this insulated mug next time you visit your favorite coffee shop or convenience store, instead of taking your beverage out in a disposal cup. And keep using it again and again: You could save your local landfill – and the environment – a lot of waste. Thanks from the green-thinkers at XYZ Company.

Think of this as the ad-specialty version of repurposing content if you like. Truth is, our environment could use a little help on the to-go cup front. Writing in the November 2007 issue of Fresh Cup, Lois Maffeo makes a couple of telling points.

First, the standard paper-and-plastic go cup is a key part of the retail coffee biz. You know it – everybody knows it. You only have to look around at how many people are carrying Starbucks go cups into meetings…and just about everywhere else.

Second, the “average American office worker’s annual consumption of 500 beverages in disposal cups” means that trash baskets, garbage trucks and landfills are overwhelmed with the things. These are objects made of paper or plastic (or both) that are put to use for an estimated 20-30 minutes. Maffeo says that the conventional go cup is one of America’s quickest paths to the waste stream: buy it, use it, throw it away. In half an hour tops.

One answer that’s being stirred (not shaken) by the cup industry…uh, the paper product manufacturers…is creating go cups with renewable resources, or post-consumer recycled content. And this is a good one, even if it means that retailers who offer compostable cups will pay two or three cents more per cup than for a paper cup. We’ll end up paying for that, but it’s worth it for the benefit.

The better, greener answer is the insulated travel cup or tumbler – the one that you’re likely already making available to customers and prospects. (And no, I am not being paid by the Advertising Specialty Institute for this post…no promotional fees for me, thank you. Although I am open to discuss…)

No one but you and I will know if you start putting a bit of paper inside each of your company’s promotional tumblers; and add a little extra environmental messaging to your corporate brand platform.

I asked some of my colleagues if they could make my own sentences sharper or wittier. They did. With thanks to each, here are their suggestions.

1. “I cut the word count by 37% but don’t think it’s any more provocative,” Graham Rust of Rust2 in Prague said. His option:

Use this insulated mug every time you visit your favorite coffee shop or convenience store (instead of taking yet another disposable cup) and you’ll cut local landfill, and help our environment. Thanks, from the green-thinkers at XYZ Company.

2. A different take from long-time Houston copywriter Bill Holicek goes like this:

Call me Max the Mug! Use me again and again at your coffee shop and carryout. You save our trees and landfills. And show eco-friendly clout.

3. From “New Jersey Jack” Goldenberg on the East Coast:

Adding waste to the environment? Stop! Littering Earth with disposable coffee cups? Stop! Start using this insulated mug ever time you drink a cup of Joe! From the Green Thinkers at XYZ Company.

4. The principal of Simply Communicate, Jamie Roark, sent this one:

Enjoy this insulated mug instead of a disposable cup each time you visit your favorite coffee spot. Know that every time you sip, the environment sighs. Thanks from the green-thinkers at XYZ Company.

However you say it, you can help save the planet – one cup of coffee at a time.

I owe the idea of this post to Bobbie Ireland and Fran LaGrone at Wood Group (who sent me the photo); and Maggie Seeliger at KBR. All of them, at various times, have given me one or more insulated travel tumblers with their corporate logos on them. I use these tumblers a lot…just the way I describe in this post. And thanks to everyone for participating.

Risotto Report

Our on-the-scene reporter, Rachel Baron, sends: Here are a couple of photos from the contest. Alison looks super cute…I am excited to see the blog. Thanks for being so supportive. By the way, Alison did receive two tickets to “Les Misérables” and a $50 gift certificate to Quick Chek. And has big plans about how to win next year.

No word on the recipe. Same with after-action PR from Quick Chek. “Maybe tomorrow…”

Souper Chef

The promotions that occur out of sight – in different regions of the country or other parts of the world – sometimes come into view thanks to relatives. This morning, Alison Bond (friend of Rachel Baron) is participating in the Quick Chek “Souper Chef” finals at the company’s South Plainfield, NJ store.

Quick Chek is a family-owned and -operated chain of 110 retail food store locations that operates mainly in the northern part of the state. Founder Carlton C Durling started it in the 1960s as an outlet for the milk from his dairy business.

That’s one way to begin a convenience-store operation – especially since Quick Chek didn’t start putting in “fueling islands” (that’s gasoline pumps to you) ‘til 2000. In 2006, the overall growth of the C-store industry was 15%. But that same year showed a 23.5% drop in profits, because of shrinking margins on gasoline and higher credit card costs (also associated with gas sales). So [a] Quick Chek’s slow movement toward adding pumps is probably a good thing for its profitability; and [b] its concentration on fresh food is critical to maintaining strong customer relationships.

Unlike the Stripes chain I blogged about in September, Quick Chek promotions seem to be more tightly tied to its products. The winter promotion is based on its fresh soups. It’s been well-advertised in the North Jersey, but there’s nothing about it on the company website. I’d say Quick Chek missed a bet, but not by much given the participation reported by our own team: Alison (chef) and Rachel (supporter).

In her “Food for Thought” blog, Angela Wyatt already noted: If you think you have a soup recipe that’s worth prizes valued up to $750, share it with Quick Chek. Starting today through Dec. 5, Quick Chek customers will have the chance to put their culinary skills to the test by submitting an original recipe that incorporates one of Quick Chek’s 14 fall menu soups as an ingredient to the company's first ever Quick Chek Souper Chef Cooking Contest.

Unfortunately, I have to report that Alison’s recipe, using the chain’s Roasted Tomato & Garlic soup as a basis for a risotto, did not bear away the bell. As a runner-up, Alison received a $50 Quick Chek gift certificate.

But she got chosen as a semi-finalist (out of 65 entrants in the month-long promo period) and had the chance to prepare her “Roasted Tomato and Spinach Risotto” to compete against four other contestants and their recipes on site. The event was previewed in today’s Bridgewater, NJ, Courier-News.

A soup-powered promo for a C-store makes a nice change from the ordinary gas and credit card activities. Quick Chek’s PR people ought to be able to get some winter-time mileage out of this

I also hope Alison will share her recipe with Signalwriter’s readers. More of this anon.