Thomas Coussens of Place Nundah has used a "Selfie Wings" banner around his children's future school in a sponsorship agreement. It has gone nuts - kids, parents and the public have been standing in front of the wings posting photos of themselves, all the while spreading Thomas' brand locally. Thomas discusses how he promotes his business through community engagement.
Thomas Coussens of Place Nundah discusses his interactive marketing strategy which uses a "Selfie Wings" banner around his children's future school.
I've always looked at ways to promote business by engaging with the community, presenting marketing that provides a genuine dual-purpose. The opportunity arose via my sponsorship of Milton State School to utilise some fence space at the school for advertising banners. I've seen quite a few "sponsored by" banners on schools that provide a certain level of subconscious branding, but nobody really takes any notice of them. I wanted my banners to not only stand out but present a little bit of my personality and spark some joy in the community.
The selfie wings were initially just a bit of fun. I certainly didn't invent the idea of selfie wings but in this case, I felt like having them displayed at Milton State School was a great way to combine my branding and promote my sponsorship with the school, whilst sending fun and positive messages - i.e 'the students preparing to take flight'.
Rosalie Village and Milton State School is a colourful, vibrant community with great friendships and bonds. The wings are an excellent reflection on this and just create happiness. They are bright, they are fun, and they can just change the mood from the everyday standard drop-offs/pick ups into a lovely interaction between friends and family. I think the kids have a lot of fun with them and they will become something that they look forward to interacting with. Also, there are approx. 700 students that will walk past the banners twice a day, every school day. I feel like this kind of interactive marketing would succeed in most public spaces to some degree but the school community of which my family and I are part of have embraced this in the manner it was intended, a bit of fun.
It's probably a bit early to tell what impact these banners will have towards my business in terms of any leads but I have received generous feedback from the community by way of photos being texted to me, being tagged in photos on social media and general passing comments from people telling me how much they enjoy it. They have been a positive experience for the community, beyond my expectations. One text I received recently said "We love it. Thank you for making our neighbourhood a happy place."
I have honestly loved every photo that I have been sent or seen of people having fun with the wings, it genuinely makes my day! I have made a collage of all of them because they all individually make me smile whenever I see them.
I will definitely do more interactive marketing campaigns, the success of this one has absolutely got me thinking of new ideas. I'm thinking of ways to further promote interaction with this idea through competitions on social media, but I definitely have some other fun ideas that I'm playing around with. The dual-purpose marketing that I mentioned earlier is the key, promote myself, my brand and my personality in an interactive and fun way that supports the local community.