Background Before waterless tattoos came to market, the only type of temporary tattoo available required water to apply. The concern among parents and marketers is that children were, and still do, use their saliva to apply the water-type temporary tattoos when a clean water supply is unavailable. Waterless tattoos eliminate the mess associated with water and they eliminate the need for kids to use their germ and bacteria-infested saliva to apply temporary tattoos to themselves … and their friends.
By eliminating the basic health concern, marketers are finding that waterless tattoos are fast-becoming a top marketing tool of choice. In general, waterless tattoos are great for walk-a-thons, open houses, school pride events, school fairs, church special events and more. But because effective promotional marketing is about specifics, we'll take a look at specific ways you can use waterless tattoos to your strategic advantage.
Drive Tradeshow Traffic to Retail Location Waterless tattoos can be used to effectively drive local tradeshow traffic to a retail location. Again, because they require no water to apply, they can be applied immediately with no mess. Lets say your company will exhibit at a local trade show. You hand out waterless tattoos to attendees telling them that if they wear the tattoo when they visit the retail location in the next 3 days they'll receive (fill in the blank). For instance you can offer an in-store tradeshow special or allow the person to enter a promotional drawing. Getting people to register for drawings is a fantastic way to establish or build a database. Remember, they can't register to the tradeshow, they can only register at the retail location and only if they are wearing the waterless tattoo.
Smarter retailers use in-store signage before the tradeshow to let customers know the benefit of getting their free waterless tattoo at the trade show and of the benefit of a post-show return visit. To get maximum leverage, plan to launch a new product, offering or service at the tradeshow and hype it with your in-store signs. This tactic helps improve booth traffic at the trade show. Once people attend the booth they are introduced to the new product or service, given the waterless tattoos and told of the incentive to wear the tattoo into the retail store within the next three days.
Taken a step further, encourage trade show attendees to apply the tattoo (usually to the back of their hand) right away. Tell them that company representatives are wandering the trade show floor randomly awarding, special prizes to those who are sporting the tattoo. These special prizes can range from store gift certificates to store-related promotional items. One good approach is to award people with a large trade show bag. The bag is big enough that attendees put all their other stuff into your imprinted bag, giving you even more exposure.
The combination of the waterless tattoo and the bag exposes your company logo to everyone in attendance. When others see people being rewarded for having the waterless tattoo, it can further increase booth traffic giving your company/business exposure to possible new customers. What you reward people with depends on your promotional budget, but can range from bags and t-shirts (that the recipient is encouraged to don right away) to flashing lapel pins, flashing pendants, hats and bandannas.
Promote Entertainment/Special Events In this scenario, you have a booth at the local county fair and you want to promote an event that will take place in a couple months to which you'll charge admission. As you hand out the waterless tattoos, imprinted with the event name, date and ticket order #, let people know that your representatives are walking the fairground. Those sporting the tattoo will be registered to win free tickets to the event. Again, this is an effective way to establish or build a database.
Another approach is to simply allow them to register at the booth once they apply the waterless tattoo. In either case, you'll want to ensure that your waterless tattoo design is bright and colorful and that your booth sign matches the tattoo. This will let people who see the tattoo on others, make an immediate connection when they approach your booth. I know of one case where a community art center is using this tactic to promote … a Tattoo Exhibit. You can use this tactic whenever you get a booth at a public event such as art fairs, festivals and mall kiosks.
Event Contests This concept carries with it an inherent public relations component that is absolutely powerful. Because waterless tattoos are an inexpensive adverting/promotion medium, they are perfect for design contests. Let's say a school wants to launch a school pride or school spirit program. A design contest is a great way to add excitement and interest.
Students are encouraged to enter their drawings for a "School Spirit" tattoo. The winning design or designs are produced as a tattoo to be worn during "Spirit Week". This type of program is great because of the earned media component. It's worth several press releases and can be a great vehicle for a local business or several to gain sponsorship exposure. And of course the winning students will be thrilled to have their name in the local media.
Cities, towns and villages can use this idea to create hype for such events as Down Home Days, Summer Fest, Do-Da Days and other local festivals and events. County and state health departments can hold design contests addressing such topics as abstinence, anti-drug messages and other health issues. Corporation HR departments can use this idea as part of Founders Day or other corporate events.
Inserting Into Publications Waterless tattoos are custom manufactured to your specifications. That means they can be produced for insertion into magazines, periodicals and newsletters no matter if your publication is saddle stitched or case, perfect, spiral or comb bound. Because they are light, they're perfect for direct mail campaigns giving you the ability to target your audience.
Retail Babysitters Retail sales is hard enough without having to fight your customer's or prospect's kids for the parents attention. As retail babysitters, waterless tattoos are perfect. This tactic works well for everyone from real estate professionals to car dealers.
First, produce a number of different custom designs. Next, when the parents show up, give the kids a few waterless tattoos to play with after getting the parents permission. If after a while they get bored, give them a few of your alternative designs.
In most cases, this will keep the kids busy long enough for you to make some headway with the parents. And because waterless tattoos don't require water to apply, you have no mess. Perfect when showing a new home a new car or in a carpet showroom.
This is also a great tactic for the bank drive though. With the kids content in the back seat with a couple waterless tattoos, mom or dad can concentrate on the transaction. "Bank On Your Future" coupled with an anti drugs message can be real effective.
We've covered just a few of the many promotional and marketing applications of waterless tattoos. Because children love them, it's not difficult to gain major exposure at local events by handing out waterless tattoos to the children. In no time, you'll have hundreds of little billboards running around promoting your logo, brand or message.
Design Considerations The key is simple, colorful design and the ability to have an effective distribution system, whether they are handed out, mailed or inserted into publications.
When designing a waterless tattoo, be mindful of how your logo or design will show up on dark skin. In most cases, the problem is solved by laying down a white base, then overprinting the other colors. In other cases, a simple white outline will do the trick.
Summary: With a little creative thought and a good idea of what you want to accomplish, waterless tattoos can be an extremely effective promotional tool. Sure, I'll admit many of the ideas I've outlined can be utilized with regular temporary tattoos and stickers. However, kids sometimes put stickers where parents don't want them and regular tattoos still have that water/saliva dogma to deal with. From a promotional marketing standpoint, on comparison, you can't beat the good, clean, fun of waterless tattoos.
Michael Merrick Crooks, is founder of Crooks Advertising Alliance a creative strike-force specializing in creative problem-solving as it relates to advertising and promotional marketing. A Battle Creek, MI native, Crooks is a Cub Scout leader and Little League Baseball coach. For more unique marketing articles, visit www.CrooksAdvertising.com and sign up for his free newsletter, CrooksView Creative Digest. Or visit the most authoritative website in the world on the subject of waterless tattoos: www.WaterlessTattoos.com
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