The Importance of Individuality (featuring ‘that’ Meerkat!)

However, there is the odd company who decides to take a more creative approach to promotional marketing by doing something completely original, individual and bespoke.

This approach works best when a brand has an image or perhaps a marketing campaign that has become desirable in its own right, almost in addition to their standard products or services.

A particularly apposite example where bespoke promotions are concerned is that of the ‘Compare the Market’ price comparison company. Back in 2009, the company launched a new marketing campaign to help them improve their market share of what was an already rather saturated field.

The campaign centred on the idea of confusion between their comparethemarket.com car insurance website, and a fictitious comparethemeerkat.com meerkat comparison website, hosted by an aristocratic animated meerkat known as Aleksandr. The campaign was an unprecedented success, helping to raise the website from the 16th most viewed insurance site before the ads launched in 2009 to the 4th most viewed today.

While the TV adverts helped to dramatically improve the company’s profile, promotional merchandising that tied into the campaign has helped to have an additional knock-on effect.

As of 2011, the company produced bespoke cuddly toy versions of their animated meerkat representatives, and these now hold arguably as much attraction to customers as the benefits of the website itself. The current crop of television ads use these toys as major selling points, helping compare the market to win custom ahead of their rivals.

As if to demonstrate the overwhelming success of this promotional marketing coup, there is now even a website devoted exclusively to helping fans buy their favourite meerkat toys from eBay.

As fatuous as that may seem, it is demonstrative of how successful bespoke promotional items and promotional giveaways can be when teamed with an innovative and original marketing campaign.

Don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd – work with us to produce some bespoke promotional items such as promotional giveaways and ensure that your business’s individuality doesn’t go unrewarded in the future.