MOST POPULAR POSTS:
LDB ARCHIVES:
|
|
I'll let you put your logo on my forehead: Human advertising, is it worth it? |
|
Wesley Nicholson - Logo Design Blog
|
|
Thursday, 22 November 2007 |
Go to eBay and type in "your logo on my body" and you'll pull up at
least one auction with some crazy nut selling the opportunity to put
your logo on some visible part of his/her body (in the form of a henna
tatoo) for up to a three month period. Prices can range from
$1000-$50,000, based on the person and the part of the body (a forehead
will cost you more than the back of a hand).
Now I know that for most of you this is not news, there are entire
sites dedicated to it (http://www.humanadspace.com this guy claims to
be the original "forehead for sale", I didn't take the time to verify
his claim) , and the whole idea was pretty well documented by blogs and popular media when it first debuted, so I'm not going to pretend that I am making some startling revelation.
The question I wanted to raise here is: can putting your logo on
someones body help your company in any way? Is it something that a
reputable company should consider as part of their advertising campaign?
Now, for the sake of this "study", we'll use a currently active auction
on eBay, this guy is selling the following for $20,000:
"I will place your company or personal
logo or slogan on my forehead with a henna tattoo for 1 month. Included
with this auction is a guarantee to spend at least 2 hours per day in
public view, and distribute business cards or flyers to anyone who
inquires about the artwork. No profanity or morally objectionable
material. Henna colors are limited to black, browns, oranges, reds, and
yellows."
Okay, so you get 60 hours of advertising 60/20,000 = $333.33 an hour. The next question is, how many people actually
see the logo? You need to take into consideration that even though the
two hours might be spent in the busiest mall in the country, and our
society does become ruder everyday, there are still a large number of
people out there who consider it impolite to stare unashamedly at
someone, even if that person has a tatoo on their forehead. Plus, you
need to remember that only your LOGO is on their forehead, and unless
you already have a widely recognizable logo the chances of the logo
being associated with your company are very slim, the exception would
be if you simply had your company name or website address on the
forehead - i.e. LogoDesignBlog.com, and even then someone would have to
be fairly close and staring your "billboard" in the face to read it.
Now the upside to this would be that anyone that actually saw the logo,
or talked to your human billboard about it would probably never forget
your company.
The real value of the tatto is in any news coverage that your purchase
gets, the first few companies to rent "body real esate" got a very good
return on their money, simply because of the national news coverage
that they got because of it. Sadly, the media seems to have moved on,
and even though you may get some local coverage of it it's probably not
enough to justify the $333/hour rate.
I'm not going to make a call either way here, that is up to you, but it
seems to me that the $20,000 would be much better spent on a bunch of
TV AD spots, where you get an entire 30-60 seconds of a large number of
viewers time, than on the few local people that happen to see your
company logo. On the other hand, if you are able to get a "billboard" locally, and you can get the local media to make a big enough fuss about it, you may be able to generate enough of a buzz to make it worth it. Only you know what is best for your company.
|
|
|
SUBSCRIBE TO LDB: |
| |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
Support Our Sponsers: |
| |
|
