Since we launched a year-and-a-half ago Zecco has pushed the envelope on the marketing front. We don’t have a fortune to spend on advertising like some of our competitors (we’d rather give you free stock trades—10 a month, $4.50 thereafter) so we’ve had to come up with some cool, stand-out ideas to call attention to our brand. Necessity breeds invention. In true Zecco fashion, we’d like to leverage our users’ collective wisdom to help us create the next generation of campaigns that will make every dollar work like ten. Read on, and chip in.
Shortly before we launched, one of our competitors got wind and dismissed our free stock trading vision by saying “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” To prove them wrong, we bought out every hotdog vendor on Wall Street and served all those old-school brokers a free hot lunch on our launch day. They happily wolfed down our dogs, and the stunt was picked up on CNBC and other news outlets.
At the same time, we staged street protests against high broker fees at the Charging Bull statue in New York. Students marched wearing signs that read, “Question Authority and Your Broker” and “Trading Fees are Bull.” The press and the people loved it.
Since then, we’ve run our “Make Love, Not Commissions” ads on Valentine’s Day, and we’re currently running a “Holy Shi…” campaign in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York that’s generating a lot of buzz. We also produced a funny video poking fun at one of our competitors, but the lawyers made us stop running it.
Now here’s where you come in.
First, we want to get a gauge on “how far is too far?” That is, how far can we push the envelope to break through the clutter without turning our current and potential customers off. We want to have fun, but don’t want to be offensive. Check out the following mock up. We’re having a little internal debate about it. Let me know if you think we should run with it or toss it. Is it going too far?
Second, here’s your opportunity to help us come up with the next big idea that’s going to help us break out from the pack. Throw them to me! As you can see, we’re game for an awful lot. Post your ideas here, or if you have a hand drawn sketch or image you can’t post here send me a private message. Thanks in advance!