Creativity in Public Relations

My good friend Jess from Auckland sent this my way and I couldn’t be happier as this campaign truly breaks new ground and gets high marks for creativity, buzz-generation and more. Welcome to the world’s first man vending machine. The team at Flossie.com – a pumped up website for NZ ladies with beauty, fashion, dating and sex advice and tips – installed the machine on the streets if Auckland and let the fun begin.

The team outfitted an old Coke machine and turned it into the “Man Vending Machine” with choices like “Romantic, Rich, Classic and Mr. Perfect” ready at the push of a button. Depending on what they push the door opens up (with a bit of smog/smoke effect) and out pops the man they selected – ready actually to head out on a date with them. The best part, however, happens for those women who pushed the “Mr. Perfect” button – which then dispensed a brand new self-use vibrating device for the ladies. According to the website the team spent lots of time interviewing the men who would eventually pop out of the machine, ensuring all were nice and normal guys ready to be in on the fun (and who of course were all single). You can watch the video showing the machine being built and some great reactions to women (and men) who tried their luck at the vending machine on the site.

For me the campaign works on multiple fronts. First of all, it’s incredibly creative and taps into probably a hidden desire for lots of women (and maybe a look at the future). It also is easy to tell your friends about this (if you saw it in person), so a great pass-along factor. And the campaign speaks to the tagline of Flossie.com – whatever you need, it’s on us – in a cool way, starting a conversation that’s relevant to their target audience of women.

There are a few things I would love to see if Flossie.com tries it again, such as more hidden video footage to capture more surprised consumers. I also think they could have gotten some added PR buzz but securing a celebrity to be part of the vending machine choices, supercharging the talk-ability factor. And imagine if a radio station was broadcasting the whole event live, expanding the reach of the campaign and producing some amazing real-time stories. In addition, the website has the same content as YouTube, so next time would be great to put more of the short, consumer surprise footage on YouTube with “watch more” information listed by the video to drive more people to check it out. Probably budget availability got in the way with some ways to expand the campaign (which always seems to be the case), so just throwing these ideas out for fun.

This is definitely a new favourite of mine, so a big “WOOHOO” for Flossie.com!