Jansport, Appleton, WI, has attached hangtags to its new backpack as part of its back-to-school marketing campaign. The hangtags offer students who mail the tags back with proof of purchase a free interactive CD-ROM containing links to the Jansport home page to browse its catalog of other products.
Kelly Schmitting-Dorn, event and promotions manager at Jansport, could not give specific response numbers but described the initial response as “very good.” Jansport will begin sending the CDs to young people next week. The CDs, which are called enhanced CDs or E-CDs, were developed by The Entertainment Marketing Promotion Organization (Tempo), Atlanta.
The hangtags were placed on 20,000 Airlift backpacks that target 18- to 24-year-old male and female “cultural rebels” who participate in extreme sports.
“This is the first interactive back-to-school campaign we have done,” Schmitting-Dorn said. “To this point, we have fulfilled a few of the requests for the CDs, but the majority of them will be going out this week.”
The E-CD is designed to convey the image or the lifestyle of the end-user by combining popular music with the capabilities of a CD-ROM. It is capable of holding a full-length music program, interactive games and information, contests, product and service information, films and broadcast-quality commercial clips, a Web browser and links to client Web sites.
The Jansport E-CD does not market anything in particular but includes a link to Jansport’s home page, where a user can browse through its database of products and obtain pre-shopping information. Users also can link to the six music groups featured on the CD along with a graphic of the artist’s album cover, a group bio and music videos.
The E-CD features an extreme sports guide, which has an interactive map of the United States and highlights certain locations that are considered extreme sports locations. Directions to the locations also are included. Another section of the CD is the Hit List, which contains book reviews and information on additional music groups.
“This disk is intended to be a lifestyle piece and a traffic driver,” said Meredith Marconi, chief operating officer at Tempo. “It is intended to appeal to many aspects of the cultural rebel lifestyle.”
