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Case Study: Attention Drawing Giveaways

03/20/2019 industry_insights

Giveaways The Crowd Will Come Back For.

 

The goal of any giveaway is to create a buzz, to attract attention to your organization and get people talking about it. But as any marketer could tell you, this is often easier said than done.

Unless, that is, you’re Rich Wiley, Dealer Channel & Merchandise Manager for the New Holland Agriculture and Construction brands at CNH Industrial, who has discovered the secret getting people coming back to his tradeshow booth year after year – with collectable giveaways, in this case stress relievers.

“I inherited this from New Holland,” Wiley said. “We were giving out farm animal stress relievers every year. We had given out a horse and a chicken, a cow, basically standard farm animal shapes with our logo on them.”

These were a big hit at the farm shows at which New Holland exhibits.

“I noticed people taking them and coming back to get the new one every year,” Wiley said. “They were collecting them.”

Especially popular with the families who attend the shows, which Wiley describes as county fairs without the rides, CNH soon ran out of animal shapes and had to get creative.

“I started thinking about custom shapes,” he said. “I’ve done tractors, speedrowers, a combine. We did a grape harvester for a show in California, a skid steer for our construction shows, I’ve done peanut and peaches in Georgia, corn kernels, all sorts of shapes.”

They’ve become so popular, Wiley has to divide them up with a certain number per day to make sure he doesn’t run out. Of course that doesn’t always work.

“At a show in California we were giving out grape harvesters (and) at the end of the day a little boy came by and saw we were out,” Wiley said. “His mother asked if we had any more, but before I could answer he was walking away with tears in his eyes. This was on day two, so I went and got him one (from the day three box) and that made him happy.”

It’s not just a feeling of good will that New Holland is generating with this giveaway either. They have also seen traffic and leads increase.

“We’ve seen traffic increase to our tent 30-50%,” Wiley said. “We can’t attribute it all to (the stress relievers), but it’s definitely a part. People see other people with them and come to our lot looking for them. It drives people to the tent for potential interactions with salespeople.”

Overall, the giveaway has been a great success, as year after year as people stop by to collect the newest version. Not only are they visiting the booth, but the stress relievers are generating countless brand impressions wherever they’re displayed by the recipients.