A 3PL Marketer's Take on Shipping Your Pants

04/26/2013 — Matt Nagel

In case you've been living under a rock for the past couple weeks; K-Mart launched an incredibly popular campaign-gone-viral advertisement encouraging customers to —Ship their Pants.' While I don't feel the commercial is especially creative in terms of content, the low-brow humor is undeniable. Additionally, this commercial immediately caught my attention being a marketing professional in the shipping industry and still harboring a part of my 13-year-old self's sense of humor. Not to mention that using the word —ship' interchangeably for a certain 4-letter word has long been a promotional pipe dream of mine. Maybe this is my chance!

• Let us take care of the Ship
• We're the Ship
• Shipping for you since 1989
• We Ship Year Round (OK, OK the last 2 are a stretch)

On second thought, maybe the folks at K-Mart aren't the barrier busters I may have thought they were. Not only was that not as satisfying as I thought it would be, it makes me reevaluate the brand repercussions. Regardless of how many people see your ad, is it really a great idea to associate your brand with certain 4-letter words?

So is this ad marketing genius or brand suicide? I'm going to perch squarely on the fence with this one and say it's a little of both. On the one hand, as mentioned before, it's probably not the best idea to conjure less-than-savory images whenever someone thinks of your brand. On the other hand, people are talking about it, and that should count for alot. At some point (and that point may very well be 15 million YouTube views), exposure is exposure. In a world where consumers live in a constant barrage of billboards, emails, ads, pop-ups, and commercials, isn't it better to be talked about rather than talk about yourself?

With the majority of PartnerShip customers being small businesses that have marketing initiatives of your own, I pose these questions to you:

1. What do you think about the Ship Your Pants' campaign?
2. Would you, as an owner or employee of a small business use similar tactics?
3. Can you think of any example advertisements comparable to the K-Mart ad?

Please respond with your comments by clicking the "Click here to read/write comments" section below. Oh, and in case you haven't seen it, or if you just want to watch it for the 100^th time, you can check out the K-mart YouTube spot below.

Happy Shipping!