Promoting a line of pre-cast concrete school buildings may seem like a non-glamorous task, but that only made this lively, creative campaign that much more of a surprise and a success.

Fibrebond Corporation wanted to introduce its new product line to the school market. The cost-saving building method was developed with schools in mind, and their objective was to build this target market into 10 percent of overall company sales.

Since apples (for the teacher) are so closely associated with schools, and since their message is “We're different,” the concept of comparing “Apples to Oranges” was a perfect fit. A series of citrus-themed promotional items supported the message. Orange-shaped stress balls, orange slice magnet pens, orange-colored embroidered polo shirts, and orange-shaped mouse pads were only some of the brightly colored, smile-inducing items presented during sales calls, distributed at tradeshows and shipped to prospective clients. The seemingly disconnected theme (“Why ‘oranges’ when you're talking about school buildings?”) gave sales reps a perfect opening to talk about the product and it's benefits. The orange-theme made for a most “a-peeling” campaign. (Honest, I didn't make that up!)

The campaign, which lasted several months and covered several fronts, cost less than $10 per recipient. Results? They proudly reported that 352 buildings from the new product line were sold. This amounted to 20 percent of overall sales for the period, doubling their original target.