Gulf News, the UAE’s leading newspapper wanted to boost sales in their home country, which is no small task considering the generally accepted demise of newspapers. Their marketing company turned to Tim Horton’s, a large coffee store similar to Starbucks due to the fact that consumption habits highlighted the fact that most consumers drink coffee with their newspaper.
The effort involved a custom sleeve printer that printed out the latest news clips from Gulf News fresh for customers. The campaign was wildly successful, increasing both web traffic and subscriptions.
Most companies consider guerilla marketing to be a bare-bones bootstrap effort, but sometimes the eloquent and expensive can serve the aim just as well. Also, unlikely partnerships can often be more helpful than attempting to pull off the campaign yourself. In this example, there was an added value for the Tim Horton customer, which led to benefit for both Horton’s and Gulf News.