A recent study by Markitecture, a product-development firm, found that 87% of marketing executives surveyed said their company’s success depends on new products, and nearly three-quarters said new products are most important to profits over the next five years.

So, what can you do to make sure your company’s new products are well received and generate the maximum amount of interest? By using promotional products to support your new product campaigns, you can help make a good first impression and ensure that the sentiment will continue. Read on to see how four different companies poised their products for success.

Glam Does Fashion
When you’re hooked in to fashion, there are some events that you just don’t miss. New York Fashion Week, where designers unveiled their spring 2006 lines, was certainly one of those events. So, when Glam Media wanted to direct readers to its new, fashion-focused Web site Glam.com, it couldn’t have picked a better venue.

Glam planned a multifaceted campaign to get the word out. First, it sent mailings to 100 fashion influencers. Using a white logoed gift bag and hot pink tissue paper, the mailings were made to draw attention. Inside the bag, recipients found a white keepsake box tied with a big pink Glam.com-logoed ribbon. Then inside that was a Glam.com-logoed iPod, complete with preloaded songs, and big pink logoed gumballs.

But it was at the many fashion shows during the week that Glam really got things going. It took out ads in the fashion week staple The Daily, advertising the Web site and telling people to watch out for its presence around NYC that week. For one, it wrapped two BMW Z4s with the Glam.com logo and used the cars to transport tired editors to and from the shows. The Z4s also shuttled a number of “Glam Girls” around the city. Dressed in style savvy jeans, T-shirts and hats, the girls gave out logoed gumballs and postcards to Fashion Week attendees.

The launch was a great success, with more than 100,000 unique users viewing more than 1 million pages in the site’s first week. “We’re thrilled that Glam.com has completed an extremely successful launch, and has become one of the fastest-growing Web sites to reach women that love fashion and shopping in just one week,” says Samir Arora, founder and chairman of Glam Media.

Color was key for this event, says Julia O’Connor, president and founder of Trade Show Training Inc. (www.tradeshowtraining.com) and author of The Trade Show Reader: It Takes More Than a Display and a Handshake to Sell at a Trade Show. “Glam.com used pink, pink, pink in fun ways to attract attention to this select and media-driven event,” O’Connor says. “Was the success in reaching out to just 100 influencers? No, it was in careful selection of those influencers plus many more touch points: cars, gals, gumballs, all in pink. It was a very experiential marketing event targeted to influencers at many levels – from those selected, gifted and fawned over to the fashion-savvy sidewalk lookers. Glam.com tried to touch all the bases.”

Audience, Found
Sometimes, the key to getting people’s attention is catching them off guard. But surprising today’s marketing-savvy consumers seems harder than ever. One solution is placing your marketing message in an unexpected spot, which is how Denmark-based Carlsberg brewery spread the word that it was now importing its beers directly to the U.S.

Working with communications agency Cossette Post, Carlsberg decided on specially printed faux passports that were strategically placed in taxis, bars, malls and other public places. “I skip past print ads every day, but I don’t think even the most jaded among us would ignore a found passport in the back of a cab,” says Robert Reiser, chief creative at Cossette.

The passports were made to look just like the real thing. With a textured Carlsberg-green cover, it contained 12 pages of company information and tips for world travelers. Mock stamps from around the world, toasts in 34 languages and the phrase “May I have a Carlsberg, please?” translated into various languages were among the information included.

The international theme perfectly captured the image the beer-maker intended. “The Carlsberg drinker is worldly, without being a snob,” explains Erik d’Auchamp, marketing manager of Carlsberg USA. “He likes international food, independent films and loves travel. And a passport to ‘drink with a world of friends’ seemed a perfect fit.”

The campaign launched in key cities in 35 states and generated buzz about the beer, with favorable coverage in several publications, including the New York Post, Chicago Sun-Times and Beverage World.

The promotion worked because it was unexpected, says Kristin Zhivago, a 35-year veteran marketing consultant and author of Rivers of Revenue. “What a great way to break through the clutter without offending anyone,” Zhivago says. “What this campaign does is remind us all that a brand’s story can be told in a vehicle that we would normally associate with something else altogether.”

Teens for Tweety
Relaunching a brand can be even trickier than presenting something entirely new. That’s what Warner Bros. faced when it wanted to build on the popularity of Looney Tunes’ classic character Tweety. Realizing the canary’s popularity with tweens and young women, Warner set out to reposition the character as a lifestyle brand.

To start, two trend-setting boutiques rolled out Tweety merchandise just in time for summer. Kitson in Los Angeles and Scoop, which has locations in New York City, the Hamptons, Miami’s South Beach, Las Vegas and Connecticut, each unveiled the Tweety collection for a few weeks in May.

In addition, Warner put together street teams to hit the beaches at the Hamptons; South Beach, Miami; Huntington Beach, CA; North Avenue Beach, Chicago; and the Jersey Shore during summer 2005. “Our street teams consisted of girls ages 18-24 with a look and style that would be attractive to younger girls aged 13-17. They embodied the image of ‘cute, fun and spirited,’” says Jordan Sollitto, executive vice president worldwide marketing and international licensing for Warner Bros. Consumer Products.

Arriving in Tweety-edition Volkswagen Bugs and decked-out in Tweety gear, the young women on the street team scoured beaches for young female trendsetters who would be interested in becoming part of the “Tweety Squad.” They handed out compacts and umbrellas bearing the character’s likeness and asked girls about their friends, fashion likes/dislikes, etc., storing the information gathered on PDAs. “Our objective with this campaign was to build a database of fashion-forward leaders of girls ages 13-17 and open a dialogue with them so that they can play a role in helping us understand what’s important to girls this age,” Sollitto says. “It’s ultimately being used to ‘seed’ and test future product development.”

Not only did Warner Bros. succeed in making Tweety-logoed items a hot property for the summer, but it also found a way to get the attention of teen trendsetters, and will continue to use their input as the brand grows. “Our goal is to have approximately 2,000-3,000 girls on the Tweety Squad to dialogue with us on trends, new designs, etc.,” Sollitto says. “Our early efforts have put us well on our way to reaching that goal.”

There were three separate elements that helped make Warner’s promotion a success: timing, mentoring and interviewing, Zhivago says, adding, “Note that none of these are ‘selling’ in the traditional sense.” First, good timing is evident in that Warner knew the importance of putting the instant gratification of increased sales aside for the long-term goal of slowly growing its market through continued research.

Next, she says, Warner combined mentors with interviewing. “Imagine how flattered a young girl would be to have someone just a bit older, and obviously very cool, approach her and start asking her questions about what she thinks. This is the cornerstone for all successful selling – asking your customers open-ended questions, and then actually listening to what they say,” she says. “Warner interviewed potential customers in order to understand how their needs could be met, and will apparently stay in touch with these individuals over time to stay in sync with them. That is the secret to successful marketing and selling, in a nutshell.”

Backyard Bravado
Movie marketers know one thing when they release a DVD: There’s a core audience who loved their movie for one reason or another and who will certainly buy the DVD to watch again. But, when a movie’s not a blockbuster, that audience has potential to grow. In fact, there may be would-be fans out there who didn’t see the movie in theaters but who would enjoy owning the DVD. That’s the situation that Universal Home Video was facing before the release of its Seed of Chucky DVD.

As a way to reach the maximum number of people, Universal teamed with promotional consultant Terry Mitchell to create a campaign promoting the release. The target: broadcast journalists who can get the word out. “Universal wanted something it could send to major broadcast journalists in the hope of generating additional coverage for the movie,” Mitchell says.

The fact that the DVD release date was near Father’s Day became an important part of the campaign, Mitchell says. “Since the movie was about Chucky’s offspring, we thought that would be a good theme to pursue.”

They decided to take a common Father’s Day tradition – the family barbeque – and imagine it Chucky-style. A backyard grilling kit was sent to 100 journalists nationwide. Each kit contained an apron bearing the film’s name, the DVD release date, the phrase “Who’s Your Daddy?” and two doll-sized “bloody” handprints; a chef’s hat; a bottle of Chucky barbeque sauce; and a fake plastic cleaver.
The promotion helped Seed of Chucky earn coverage from various outlets, and the DVD debuted as fifth on DVD sales charts and sixth on rental charts for the week it was released. “Universal was very happy with it,” Mitchell says. “They considered it a very successful promotion.”

It was a promotion that was appropriate for its market, O’Connor says. “I hate violence, so this case study is not my cup of tea … but I acknowledge that there is a market for this genre,” she says. “For the selected journalists, it was a barbeque bonanza – all the good stuff for daddy’s day plus some gore to write about. When it works – and fifth is a good place – then it is successful.”

Karen Akers is associate editor of Successful Promotions.