Purell, the hand sanitizer, and its ad agency, JWT Toronto have found an interesting way to remind people of the importance of washing one's hands.
They've distributed to physicians' offices yellow stickers to be affixed to the covers of the magazines in their patient waiting rooms. (You know the magazines we mean. The dog-eared issues that are still wondering when Brad and Jennifer are going to have a baby.)
The bygone issue dates of the magazines are visible through a hole in the stickers, resulting in cautionary headlines such as:
Thumbed through by sick people since May 2005
Exposing patients to more than germs since June 2004
Gently sneezed on since January 2006
Each sticker features a call-to-action encouraging the reader to visit WashYourHands.tv, which links to the Purell website.
It's a very clever idea, but why would doctors' offices want to remind patients that doctors are providing germ-infested publications? And wouldn't patients -- especially the ones who are sick with the flu or some other misery that's passed on by germs -- be thinking, "NOW you tell me, after I've already touched this foul thing?"
Purell should have provided physicians with a meaningful incentive to use with these stickers -- such as an ample supply of free samples to be placed alongside the be-stickered magazines. Physicians would feel they were educating their patients. Patients would appreciate the gesture. And if the samples' labels included the website, Purell would have a snowball's chance of actually driving some visitors to that site.
Source: AdFreak