No money needed? Bludot was featured in an article about how the Minnesota, USA based company is running a promotion that features an online swap meet. They post pictures of their furniture and let the public bid on the items with anything they have to offer. When I checked out the online auction in progress on 8 March 2012, some items being offered and accepted were:
Offered
Tatto Space - in exchange for a sectional sofa a man from California offered up a choice spot on his arm for the company's logo. (see photo above)
Hand Sculpture - in exchange for a "one night stand sleeper sofa" a man from Utah offered up a "time management" sculpture of a hand with money, house, car, dog, people symbols floating over the palm. Clever.
Accepted
Iconic Architecture Retreat - in exchange for a sectional sofia the Blu Dot executives will get treated to a Creative retreat at a Frank Llyod Wright designed home in Wisconsin.
Love - in exchange for a lamp a women from Massachusetts will carry the lamp around with her for 24 hours over 7 days. She proved how it would look like in her arms by photoshopping it in.
Bid or check out the activity going on through 16 March 2012 yourself. Here is how it works according to the Bludot site:
The cool part is that visitor's to the site can also vote if they think the matching is "swap worthy". What are some other authentic ways to make the old fashioned barter systems and social media blend in interesting ways? Leave your comments below.
When I first read this I thought it was some kind of internet company like ebay or so. I was asking myself who would give away design-furniture for actually nothing? Reading more I realized that BluDot a "regular" furniture company who runs this promotion for two weeks. After checkin' out their swapmeet page I have to say that this is a pretty interesting idea to bond customers. The customers get creative and even better they will tell their friends. Even though not all of the friends will engage in this competition it is very likely that they will have a look at the hompage. In the end the company wins anyways, they get publicity and can even get rid of the non-sellers.
ReplyDeleteMy first though: "i will never do like this". After: "why not?"I think that this kind of promotion is for people who are really keen on this furniture. For such customers it is interesting and exciting thing to do. Especially for those who are not lazy to create smth unusual. But in my opininon for average customer it is easier to buy this furniture. It's smth strange and new in promotion and i think all more or less creative people who wanted to swap will get the furniture cause there are not too many of them.
ReplyDeleteI think it really is an excellent way to promote your company.
ReplyDeleteSwap is in the air, money has become obsolete for some people and some particular exchanges.
This couldn't work for every company, but it's a great opportunity to be original and offer the best you can be to someone else.
I would definitely do this if they had that kind of proposals in Belgium.
However, I think swaps need big countries to work and be really interesting.
This site reminded me of some other website I saw a few months ago about exchanging tools and things like that, since we know we only use them a few times a year (or month), why not buy them together, between neighbours ?
When I red the firs few sentences I thought this was about an online company just like amazon or e bay. I have to say at firs I wasn't really into this idea but at the end I have to say it does sound good. Why not I mean people sell and advertise all kinds of things on internet but this is a good idea if you wanna be creative and original. I am sure there are many people out there that would find this idea amazing.
ReplyDeletevery thoughtful way of promoting a company. Great post.