8 replies to this topic

[reynolds]

I have a client that wants to send/hand out custom made cereal boxes to their customers and prospects explaining why the offer more than their competition.

The custom printed box is not a problem for me to source, but they also want to put other items inside the box instead of cereal.

I am having trouble thinking of other items that work.
I thought of a small frosted bowl and found one in the industry from Plastic Premium Access.
A chocolate spoon from Chocolate Inn.
Maybe a toy suprize like polybagged temporary tattoos.
Maybe measuring spoons, I don't love any of these ideas, but that is all I have so far.

Anything selected has to be small enough to fit inside the box size.
After the box costs and fulfillment I only have a couple of dollars to spend on the filler.

I would appreciate anything that comes to mind.

[3Koi Maui]

How about a white t-shirt single color imprint with "I'm not a flake!"

What does your client do? That will influence the ideas.
How big are the boxes going to be?

[reynolds]

Thanks Isa,

You always have excellent ideas.
A tee shirt would fit, but I think blow out the budget, my experience with this client is that a white tee shirt with a 1 color imprint wouldn't work - making it a colored tee shirt with a white imprint would be more than I could add.

The box is approx. 8" W x 10" H x 2.5" deep
They are a financial company and they want advisors they work with to sell their funds instead of competitors funds.
They want to promote the "MORE" theme.
By offering x, w and z they offer MORE choices and more benefits than other fund companies for the advisor.
Something for the desktop would have the most benefit so the advisor will remember the campaign and have something on their desk to remind them months later when looking for a the best fund for a new client.

But my main problem is I think they want it to tie into cereal or breakfast and that concept along with a desktop item is a difficult pairing.

[3Koi Maui]

Ah, too bad on the t-shirt. You could tell them the white garment is the milk, and then do a nice bold graphic of a bowl with cereal & a spoon, and a giant flake outline around it all.

How about:
Custom front million dollar bill? I see one from Atlantic AdGraphics, you have to buy 5000 of them, but at $0.124 sell price that's $620. product price, and could divide out to be a reasonable per-box price depending on your quantity. Only $1.24 sell for 2 bills if you are doing 500 boxes. I think they offer a full back imprint too, not sure of the pricing.

I see other fake money offerings. You could source stock dollar bills, no imprint, and have them fill the boxes with money. Then have one item in there like a prize, either a custom bill or even a business card with a message. The client is encouraged to find the special bill/prize and contact the sender to see if they won something else.

If you have the time and the inclination, you could print your own money, using a "real" looking front for the bills, and the back would have one of the services offered by your client. You can do this with a local printer or one of the online printing services. Fill the boxes with one of each bill type. Or ask the suppliers with imprintable money if they will do a copy change.

If you included a postcard for the recipient to send it to A) win a prize, B) schedule an appointment, you could also include a pencil or pen with stock money imprint.

Got creative recipients? Send them a coloring page, and a box of crayons with dollars & cents imprint (Dixon). Have a coloring contest, the most creative coloring wins a prize. Of course the images & messages on the coloring page are all about the client services. You have to make it a really good prize to get people to take the time for this. Use a postcard to make it easier for them to send in.

Or, fill the box with "everything you need" for the cereal theme. Use stock shapes where ever you can: magnets, notepads, etc. Milk, spoon, flakes (make a postcard with graphics of flakes?)

Those aren't so much desktop ideas as trying to be memorable.

Alpi has a spoon pen!
Promo Plastik has a milk jug (kind of) shaped letter slitter.
Cow shaped stress reliever? "go to the source"

Letter slitters - you can do a lot with an imprint. White opener can have the bowl of cerea graphic, and if they use the kind that take a business card, that means the imprint area can be entirely creative.

[reynolds]

Those are some great ideas.
I last did "funny" money many years ago, I thought the government cracked down on those. I will look into that again.
If I could find shred made of fake money that might make a great filler with a couple of the other small items you mentioned.

Just to clarify, the target is not end user or investor, it is a basically a sales broker selling their funds. Although financial, money/profit is not really the pitch, it is attempting to promote their back up services, software, support, MORE than other funds offer the broker.
The quantity is high, about 5000 - and they for the most part are already their best sales brokers receiving this promotion.

Similar to Leeds sending their top distributors something you could say.

I am off to sit down with an artist and work on some of this, I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea of taking any product, like a notepad, magnet but using full color graphics and die cuts to make things look like a bowl of cereal.

I appreciate your time.

Thanks,
Matt

[3Koi Maui]

Thanks Matt!

If your client is selling services, how about going with a people as ingredients theme?

See if you can find a stock man and/or woman magnets. Then do some copy changes, and "dress" them to different roles: suit & tie for support, geeky for tech, whatever works. The idea is that there are many people backing up the services offered. You could relate the roles back to the ingredients on the box. Instead of sugar, wheat, etc., you list ingredients that tie in to the services. They could be pretty funny.

If multiple boxes are going to people in the same offices, having different characters in different boxes would be kind of fun.

[ProPrinters]

How many pieces? Why not do a contest, in specially marked boxes you can win "X" and one piece has the winning ticket, but you have to register on a website to see if you have won. This would give data capture.

Give away a trip or something, that will get people's attention.

[ProPrinters]

Did you finish this project?

[djoctagone]

reynolds said:

I have a client that wants to send/hand out custom made cereal boxes to their customers and prospects explaining why the[y] offer more than their competition.

Why do they want to give the same thing to customers that know them and prospects that don't? What do they stand to get in return if they land a new customer or get an existing customer to buy the software? How did they come up with their targeted list of customers and prospects? Which brokers on that list would they really, really, really want to succeed with?

If your client realizes the answers to those questions and grasps the ROI, they'll be willing to spend more per unit and possibly target as many brokers as originally anticipated.

If you ever have the chance to meet Cliff Quicksell, ask him about the original customer list a local tennis club was going to use for a promotion, and then ask him what list they ended up using instead.