A smart marketing idea is always a big turn on. I intend bringing to you, from now on, some of the smart ideas that I come across or have heard from elsewhere. Who knows, these ideas could well help your brands, or at the least, would help you be aware of some smart brains at work.

Don’t forget to share the smart ones you come across as well.

Here are a few to begin this series….

Touch-it Paper in Ogden, Utah – Phone no. (801) 394-430 – makes cards on coloured, heat-sensitive paper. When you touch them, they change colour. People like to play with them, so they keep them, show them around, and remember them.

High Life, a brewpub in Philadelphia, U.S.A, offers a ‘Master of Beer Appreciation’ Certificate. Customers have to have their ‘transcripts’ stamped by sampling four new brews a month. Eventually customers get a degree and a T-shirt declaring your mastery. At last, a chance to get a meaningful degree!

The Hawaii Prince Hotel greets new registrants with a hot, moist, steamed washcloth. It’s a great extra, and it gets them considerable word of mouth and publicity as well when they have speakers or writers who stay with them and then tell the story.

Champs-Elysees, a restaurant in Sausalito, faxes the day’s specials to customers in the morning, and then takes phone or fax orders for delivery or pickup latter. A real hot idea, pun intended!