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.