Dot-com companies seeking to stand out from the crowd are turning to ever
more unusual placements — now that race cars, stadiums, pizza boxes, and
the sides of trucks have been used — one of the latest being dry cleaning
bags.
Weather.com and citifi.com, Citibank’s online bank, on
Wednesday inked a deal with LooK
Worldwide to place ads on plastic garment bags and hangers in more than
20,000 dry cleaning stores.
“We find that combining traditional and alternative media yields effective
results,” said Carol Rothschild, vice president, group supervisor at Young & Rubicam‘s The Media Edge in New York.
Weather.com is trying a diverse mix of ads in its latest campaign,
including peanut bags on Delta
Airlines, tops on gas station pumps, and umbrellas. The company credits
these unusual placements for its upward movement in Media Metrix and Nielsen/NetRatings rankings.
“Weather.com chose an alternative venue like dry cleaners to add to the
diverse media mix in a creative ad campaign effort,” said Alex Kaminsky,
vice president of marketing for Weather.com.
Citifi.com is using a specially crafted tagline, developed by Y&R, New York
for the placement — “Better rates. Lower banking fees. Looks like only
your clothes will be taken to the cleaners.”
LooK Worldwide, which developed the International Cleaners Advertising
Network, has handled campaigns for AT&T,
America Online and AllNautical.com.
