Double Impact

Today, as I was driving home from a local festival, I heard a radio commercial that caught my attention.  The voice in the ad was telling me about the impact the small things we do can have on the lives of others.  It began with a volunteer who brought a book to a young girl.  That book inspired a love of reading followed by a love of science that propelled her into a career as an aeronautical engineer.  The story ends with this girl growing up to be on the team that sent a rover to Mars.  I soon found out this commercial was for a gasoline company.  The hook was, "How far can a gallon of gas take you - 40 million miles."  As it turns out, the volunteer who gave this girl a book was from a books on wheels program that relies on Citgo gasonline.  This radio commercial ended with a call to action to the website about Citgo's charitable efforts - fuelinggood.com.

The story of the aeronautical engineer ended with the radio spot, but my experience with Citgo's marketing did not end there.  Coincidentally, I soon passed a billboard for Citgo a mile or two down the road.  This billboard was about the product this time, but the reinforcement of Citgo's brand and the Fueling Good campaign was fortunate - "Citgo is Good Gas Guaranteed.  Fueling Good."

While a coincidence like this is hard to plan, the experience I had with Citgo's brand had double the impact of either the radio ad or the billboard on it's own.  Anytime as ad can overlap with some other type of marketing the chances of persuading the audience goes up.  While my experience was mere coincidence, this kind of double impact can be carefully constructed.