By Bob Meyer

Tyco Toy’s Tickle-Me-Elmo, a Sesame Street muppet reincarnated as a 16-inch-high, crimson, stuffed doll, sold over a million units years ago at Christmas, all because of a brilliant marketing effort.

Their phenomenal success really occurred back in July by astute marketing. The company’s publicist went to work…shrewdly getting the doll to Parker O’Donnell, the one-year-old son of TV talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell.

A while later, after Rosie talked glowingly (and gave away some Elmo’s on her show), Elmo ended up on the lap of NBC’s Bryant Gumbel when he was interviewing a guest to discuss holiday gifts for children. The rest is history!

Put this story in your “Ideas” file.

When looking for marketing assistance, be sure to check with your barter company… see what they can provide you in the way advertising, audio visual services, promotional premiums and awards, public relations assistance, print and design services, corporate and product identity, and so on.

For further details on USA barter companies as well as global barter companies, see right-hand column titled, “Top Resources.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 9:05 am and is filed under Marketing, Purchasing & Financing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.