Outlaw Girl Scout Uses Internet Marketing
Wild Freeborn, an 8-year-old Girl Scout in Asheville, N.C., wanted her scout troop to win a free week of Scout camp. The problem is: they needed to move 12,000 boxes of Thin Crisps and Samoans at $3.50 a pop in a bad economy if they were going to have a shot.
So her dad, a web developer had an idea: lets go with Internet marketing.
Apparently, Asheville’s business community is very well connected on Twitter, Facebook, and Craigslist. All were utilized, along with mass text messaging, to get people to buy cookies. They even made a YouTube video.
However, the Girls Scouts of the U.S.A. specifically forbids selling cookies on the Internet. The Freeborns did have a site that included an order form.
Wild didn’t actually collect money on a credit card online. Instead, people would fill out the form and she would come to their door and collect the cookies along with the cash. In essence, the Internet presence was only a promotional tool.
It is understandable why the Girl Scouts would have such a rule. The point of selling cookies isn’t the bottom line, but getting out there, knocking on doors, and accosting people in grocery stores–the kind of interpersonal business skills that will benefit the girls going forward. Selling huge numbers of Samoans on a PPC campaign from the comfort of home isn’t exactly the point.
But so long as the girls are getting out of the house to deliver the cookies, using different marketing methods is a good way to get the girls involved with social media in a positive way.
Story via Robbie Brown of the New York Times
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