A Vancouver company has turned tattoos into marketing for its coffee. The company’s owners sport temporary tattoos of their logo and web address. When people comment on the tattoos, the entrepreneurs have the chance to strike up conversations about the company’s products.

Temporary tattoos are clever. But the company also issued a news release, seeking to gain publicity from its tattoo campaign. That’s where the firm can gain some real marketing traction. Rather than just marketing itself to a few individuals, the coffee company can tap into the mass media.

However, I noticed they issued the news release today. Saturday is usually a bad day for news releases — they wind up on an editor’s desk and sit until Monday. And, on Monday, the editor has a thousand other faxes, reports, phone calls, email messages and other things to deal with. And, since the headline is extremely long — “GoldenPalace.com Uses Human Billboards to Advertise; Now Vancouver Entrepreneurs Make History Using Tattoos to Promote the World’s First Healthy Coffee at Cupofmoney.com” — editors will need to make an effort to read it. Snappy headlines and good timing work wonders for news releases. Too much text and a weekend may leave this news release buried, no matter how clever the concept.

(c) 2005 by Andrea Coutu. Vancouver Marketing Consultant. All rights reserved.