Tricycle provides a carpet simulation to design professionals through manufacturers. Initially this was approached as a cost saving measure by the mills. But of course, we saw many benefits beyond cost savings, primarily eco-friendliness and convenience. We decided the best promotional approach was to analyze the design process and the practices that created a culture of sample gluttony. We appealed to design professionals to embrace conservation, responsibility and accountability -- emphasizing design waste and encouraging corporate citizenship. This is the root of the campaign. It was composed of several elements:+ an online environmental savings calculator
+ a counter (design) culture tradeshow booth (NeoCon 2005)
+ a viral sticker campaign: we gave away tins of stickers to designers with the messaging. We asked them to place them on the back of regular carpet samples and return them to manufacturers.
+ trade publication advertising: we discovered that a typical carpet sample required a quart of oil manufacture. That's just for the content, not the actual production. We created an ad campaign that addressed this -- this is also what the tradeshow booth addressed.This campaign has been so effective that our customers have adopted it! The carpet mills are actually using our data and messaging in their own marketing now. There's an article on the AIGA site that goes deeper into the strategy here.
