Marketing Mix: Virtual dosh: not just hot air

Mix always likes it when advertising lives up to national

stereotypes, and the worldwide campaign to promote Beenz, the new web

’currency’, is a perfect example.

Beenz are credits which net surfers can accumulate and then use for

activities such as shopping online. They can be exchanged for goods from

sites which have signed up to the scheme. So the company behind the idea

(also called Beenz) aims to get as many commercial sites as possible to

sign up.

So how is it doing this? Well, in the UK press advertising, through Lowe

Direct, it attempts to persuade businesses that signing up gives their

site extra pulling power. The ad is illustrated with an image of a big

red bean, surrounded by arrows with distinctly sperm-like tails, and the

simple tagword: ’Irresistible’.

A similar strategy has been put in place in Australia. The ad agency,

Lowe Hunt & Partners in Sydney, has clearly also been briefed to produce

work aimed at luring internet companies, rather than consumers. But the

end result is a tad less subtle.

’These Beenz are a fun way to attract customers and are far more

flexible and versatile than money,’ says the text, with the sort of

sincerity that might raise eyebrows among a cynical UK business

audience. But the highlight is the strapline: ’They don’t make you fart.

They make you rich’.

Australians, eh? Smooth-talking bastards, the lot of ’em.

This article was first published on Marketing