Oh what a Tuesday. What a Tuesday it was. kitesting was asked to speak on “Creative Marketing” at the Mabel’s Labels company retreat about a month ago. First thoughts – FUN! Second thoughts – How do we ‘talk’ about being creative?

As a company we believe there are no rules or laws or gurus or demi-gods of creative marketing. Anyone who tells you so is blowing smoke up your keester. And we’re no smoke blowers. The only way kitestring knows how to be creative, is to allow creativity to happen. When given a problem, a limitation and a big box of crayons anyone can be creative. So that’s what we gave all our friends at Mable’s Labels today.

Here is the challenge we gave them-

Your business is on Planet Zoltan, mirror planet to Earth in every aspect accept one: There is no water! But don`t worry, Zoltaneons have adapted to not need this liquid and subsist on fluids entirely from bananas. Your business has decided to be the first importer of water from Earth to Planet Zoltan! In fifteen minutes, your challenge is to market this product to Zoltaneons by creating:

a.      Product Name
b.      Tag Line
c.       4 Unique Product features or Selling Propositions
d.      A label for the bottle packaging
e.      Price of Product and Placement of Product (Where will this be sold?)
f.       Decide what mediums you think would best sell you product

Limitations: Your product has never been heard of on Zoltan. They will need to educated of its uses, benefits etc. Your product costs $25 a bottle to import from Earth.

We provided a big box of inspiration containing markers, crayons, stickies, paper, scissors, tape, pop rocks, ring pops, taffy and fizz candy, and we let them loose. kitestring helped facilitate the workshop, but not much help was needed. As you can see from the video below, everyone just jumped right in. By the end of the challenge each team had created an amazing product and was ready to market it to the Zoltaneons sitting in the room (Jenn, Meg, Brandon and myself).

Everyone at kitestring is honoured to have been part of this totally fun filled day. The Mabel’s Labels ladies know how to do it up right when it comes to allowing everyone on their team to have a say and be part of the marketing mix in some way. This is not how most businesses are run. This is how most successful businesses succeed.

Ok. Here’s your challenge. Get out your box of Crayons and your bag of candy and get to drawing. I want to see your vision for you and your business this year. Where do you see your business going this year. How do you see it growing this year. Limit yourself. If your marketing budget is $500 cool. Lots can be done with 500 clams if you get a little creative. Draw it out. Get it out of your head and on to paper. Keep it to yourself or share it with us and the rest of the world. Mail it to kitestring and we’ll post it to our blog. Allow yourself to be creative!

chris@kitestring.ca

kitestring creative marketing + design
136 James Street South
Hamilton, Ontario
L8P 2Z4

About the Author: chris
These are the musings about a business brainchild contained within a creative confectionery of a mind. His blog entries often look at how making friends and building your brand online is a lot like making it on the playground.

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