I was driving to a meeting earlier, when I caught an item on the radio news. A young woman whose son has two fingers missing from each hand was waxing lyrical about the kind and helpful people at sports goods manufacturer Puma.
She'd written to a number of such companies, we were told, asking whether any of them might be able to adapt a pair of their goalkeeper's gloves for her son, so that he wasn't left with two empty finger pockets flapping around.
Puma, it transpired, came through big time. They sent her a standard pair of their gloves and asked her to draw on them the position of her son's hand. Then, using these as a template, they had manufactured him his own, completely custom pair of gloves. Was he happy with them, the reporter asked? Delighted, the mother trilled.
Oh, and by the way, she also added that both Nike and Adidas had responded to her request simply by saying "nothing doing".
Now I figure the radio spot was about 120 seconds. Mid-day. National radio. There are also pictures of the happy little goalkeeper displaying Puma's logo, twice, on a pile of websites and, i'll bet, in a bunch of newspapers. All secured for the cost of someone being bothered to react to a genuine consumer request for help, and a PR department or PR company on the case enough to max its value.
That's a lot of brand marketing for very little cost. Right now, that's rather smart.
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