Tear off, get a discount and become a co-author of the poster

Burt’s Bees, an American brand of natural organic cosmetics, put up a large-format poster at a busy sidewalk in one of the cities. Not somewhere high, as it is with billboards, but low enough for the passers-by to be able to reach it without problems.

The two-layered poster featured a sad face of a woman with peeling off, problematic, dry skin. The peeling effect was achieved through thousands of tear-off tags sticking from the poster, as if asking to be torn off. Each of them was also a three-dollar coupon to be used while purchasing the advertised product – a moisturizing facial cream.

Passers-by tore off the coupons enthusiastically, which was documented by the advertising agency with a camera set up opposite the poster. Played at fast forward, the process was later turned into an interesting video. Emerging from the layer of the tear-off tags, was a smooth smiling face of the same model and once again a picture of the jar with the cream.

Tear off a tag... and think

Small tear-off posters were used in Polish cities by the agency running the Wyrzucone.pl. social awareness campaign. Each of the graphic posters presented a nursing cat or dog mum. Each tag was one puppy or kitten at the mother’s side. This was accompanied by the text: “Are you thinking about getting a dog/cat?”

With the cartoon form of the drawing and the powerful background (pink or sky-blue), the posters indeed attracted the eye. Passers-by reached for tags, but they did not find a phone number to a seller. Instead, they saw a warning that in moments like that, they were deciding about the fate of an animal and they should remember that their decision was irreversible.

The purpose of the campaign was to increase the number of informed, conscious and responsible decisions about animal adoption. It was in the middle of the summer when hasty human decisions resulted in many dogs and cats being thrown out of their homes.

Ten thousand or more tear-off posters put up in the streets by volunteers gave the campaign considerable publicity.