In the promotional products industry, we always talk about being a “walking billboard.” You take a product like a T-shirt or hat, and you wear it while you go about your day-to-day life. Others see it, and they now think about that brand, and maybe that moment influences a purchasing decision down the road.
Pabst Blue Ribbon is taking the alternate approach by testing its fanbase to see who loves its beer enough to decorate their home with PBR-branded products.
For its “In Home Advertising” campaign, PBR will pay folks to really go deep with logo placement. Beyond the immediate eye-catchers like rugs, table cloths and shower curtains, PBR is also giving customers things like label stickers for food in the fridge, toilet paper rolls, or billboards for inside fish tanks.
Did you know the average American sees 69,000 ads per day! IN HOME ADVERTISING BY PABST BLUE RIBBON https://t.co/WMCbOjSe3i pic.twitter.com/563qLJ05NM
— Pabst Blue Ribbon (@PabstBlueRibbon) September 22, 2021
https://twitter.com/PabstBlueRibbon/status/1440439511066972168
PBR is giving away these products for free—they are promotional products after all, and the participants are doing the heavy advertising lifting for them. Once they start decorating their houses, they can send pictures and PBR will compensate them.
According to Fast Company, the pay scale is based on two factors: scale and silliness. The more space those products take up relative to the size of your home, the more you get paid.
Nick Reely, vice president of marketing for PBR, told Fast Company that placing a PBR toilet paper roll in your bathroom will earn you around $6, and putting a PBR label on your mayo in the fridge will fetch $3.
It was clearly enough to entice buyers, because everything is sold out. That’s right—the toothbrush, the outlet cover, the floor decal, the sleep mask, the table cloth, even the banana sticker. All gone.
Yes, it’s maybe a little invasive to think about people selling out space in their homes, where many of us have spent an increasing amount of our time over the last two years, in exchange for a little money. PBR is aware that it all feels a bit dystopian.
“There is a dark view of this,” Reely said. “But, for us, we’re just trying to be a bit silly while giving people some cash. There are reasons people bring brands into their lives, and for PBR, people consistently do it for value. So, what better value could we offer someone than actually putting cash in their wallet?”
It’s actually pretty honest. There’s no smooth-talking sales pitch about how the brand exposure actually does you a favor, too. Nope. You get paid for being a billboard. It’s as simple as that. And, unlike some of the dire satires of capitalism on things like Netflix, no one is being forced or coerced to turn their home into a PBR branding event in exchange for their family’s lives or enough money to pay off gambling debt. (We just finished “Squid Game,” if you couldn’t tell.)
It will be fun to see just how PBR-heavy some fans go. Keep an eye on college students’ social media feeds especially. Free toilet paper? A little extra pocket money? Beer?! What else could they want?
