Next time you’re in the video store or on Netflix looking for a rental title, consider “Punch-Drunk Love.” Ostensibly a vehicle for Adam Sandler to demonstrate his serious acting chops, this quirky 2002 movie features a character-building promotions subplot.

Sandler’s character, Barry Egan, is an unmarried, workaholic small business owner, who’s a bit of a social misfit with anger management issues. Barry’s hobby is coupon-clipping. Early into the movie, he realizes that Healthy Choice promises 100 miles of free travel for each item purchased. Barry promptly buys $3,000 worth of Healthy Choice pudding. By his calculation, he’s owed 1.25 million miles.

The promotion was based on a true story that made the news in 1999 and caught the eye of director Paul Thomas Anderson. Among the news outlets that picked up the story included the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and “The Today Show.”

But David Phillips, the real “pudding guy,” is much different from the Sandler character depicted in the movie. Phillips, his wife and their two kids have traveled the world as the result of his pudding purchase.

“We continue to spend the miles from Healthy Choice, typically taking one or two family vacations per year. We’ve been to Barcelona, London, Hawaii, New York, Florida, and the Bahamas thus far, and we have trips booked for Florida, New York, and Puerto Rico,” Phillips writes in an e-mail.

“I transferred quite a few miles into hotel programs, so we could book hotel stays for free as well. Our daughters are now 15 and 12, and they’ve never known a time when we couldn’t fly anywhere we like for free.”

According to Phillips, Healthy Choice never tried to back out of the offer, though there were some fulfillment snags. “After waiting eight weeks, I got a letter saying that they had no record of receiving the UPC codes I’d sent them. I had sent the package registered mail and made copies of everything (including video and photos of all that pudding, much of which was donated to charities). They quickly sent me the miles once I provided this proof. The box with stacks of 500-mile certificates arrived in a plain box without any cover letter or notes, so I’m pretty sure they weren’t thrilled with me at that point.”

Phillips recalls that Healthy Choice parent Conagra became “friendly with me the moment the story started to break. One of their VPs called me and couldn’t say enough nice things about me. They sent me a huge gift basket with travel-related goodies. And when they saw a chance to take advantage of the media attention surrounding my story, they moved quickly to establish a friendly relationship with me, which reflected well on them during all the subsequent press coverage. I spent a couple days doing press interviews for them.”

And the packaged goods company was also savvy to recognize a great product placement opportunity in the movie. Anderson asked Phillips for the name of the Conagra executive so he could use the actual product.

Even though he’s an engineer by trade, his expertise has given him something of a second career. Conagra signed Phillips to be a paid consultant on a follow-up mileage promotion. American Airlines also ended up hiring him to help them with some corporate-aimed ads to encourage companies to run similar mileage promotions. “These ads must have been successful because they re-ran them a couple years later,” he notes.

So is Phillips still clipping coupons?

“Yes, I’m still looking for great promotions, but I haven’t found any quite as fun or interesting as the Healthy Choice pudding deal,” he adds.

In politics, they call it the “silly season.”

The primaries may be months away, but candidates are already raising funds as they gear up for the 2008 presidential election. And they are increasingly using online media like blogs and e-mail to do it.

In line with that, we asked readers to name the candidate for whom they would most like to devise an interactive marketing campaign. The question was included in our 2007 interactive marketing survey, which drew 263 responses. (See page 53).

Now we didn’t ask for voting preferences, and we’re not predicting the election outcome. But here goes.

Rudy Giuliani finished first in the informal poll with 17.1%. He was followed by Barack Obama (14.4%), Hillary Clinton (12.2%), Al Gore (12.2%) — just in case the latter changes his mind about running, John McCain (4.2%), Newt Gingrich (3.4%) and John Edwards (3.4%).

Keep in mind the survey was conducted prior to the news of Sen. Edwards’ wife finding out that her cancer had returned. Imagine the possibilities regarding fundraising and/or charity-based interactive campaigns.

Oh yeah, Condoleeza Rice received one write-in vote.
— Larry Jaffee

It Pays to be Bad

They say any press is good press. But did the industry need the publicity created by the infamous Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerrilla campaign in Boston?

Probably not, according to the second annual PROMO 2007 Interactive Marketer Trends study. Of the 263 marketers surveyed, 22% believed the industry was “damaged in general” by the bungling. On the other hand, 26% thought the resulting stir has outweighed the negative attention, and only 12.5% said the damage was greater than the buzz. “The city of Boston’s overreaction was practically perfection,” said one survey participant in a write-in answer. “The target market for Aqua Teen Hunger Force was engaged via all the hoopla about the promotion — and would not have been turned away by the anti-establishment effect. So what if a few people got their noses out of joint? It didn’t hurt the brand.” Another marketer put it this way: “I’m quite sure the audience for Aqua Teen Hunger Force enjoyed the publicity from the stunt in Boston.”
— Larry Jaffee

Cars for the filthy rich

Don’t get smug if you’ve just discovered event or experiential marketing. Hester Motor Co. was doing it 90 years ago.

In 1917, the firm staged events to show off its Fageol car, “the most wonderful product of a wonderful century,” inviting only people who could afford the $13,000 vehicle.

In the first showing, the auto was placed in the center of a hotel dining room, 74-feet long and 18-feet wide.

“The car was started, attained a speed of twenty-five miles per hour, and was stopped within the necessary seventy-five feet,” said a direct mail letter inviting people to a similar event at New York’s Biltmore Hotel. “The full performance took four seconds.”

Men of means could view the Fageol from 9 a.m. to midnight at the Biltmore, and request a personal demonstration. But they had to act quickly if they wanted to buy one.

World War I was then raging, and the letter noted that “the United States Government has commandeered the plant and facilities producing the motor that drives the Fageol Car.”

That meant Hester could deliver “but twenty-five of the best motors in the world, on the finest chassis the world has yet produced, on the most beautiful car designs known to the automobile world.”

Hester, showing unusual marketing skill for that time, sent a package containing a folder, a letter and an engraved invitation to 2,457 multi-millionaires, according to The Mailbag, a direct mail trade publication from the era. And it had a second letter ready for people who didn’t respond to the first. It said:

“Dear Sir:

There is one car in the world that makes its owner master of the road.

No other car can pass it.

That car is the Fageol.

It can go one mile per hour, or one hundred and sixteen miles an hour — or faster.”

How did the campaign do? It couldn’t have done any better — all 25 cars were sold.
— Ray Schultz