What an exotic bird can teach you about advertising
3-minute read • 446 words
I hadn’t long since moved to the S8 postcode area when I saw one.
Me and Francesca had gone for a walk around nearby Graves Park. It was her who spotted it first:
A flash of vivid green, speeding through the air. What on earth was it?
Later, a quick Google search gave the answer:
It was a parakeet. An Indian rose-ringed parakeet, to be exact, although perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised to see it…
Turns out parakeets are found all over Britain, not just south Sheffield. And there are a few curious theories why…
Some say the UK’s first wild parakeets escaped from a London film studio during production of ‘The African Queen’, starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Others think the country’s parakeets are descended from a pair released by legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s. Here’s the thing, though:
With its dazzling colours and long, thin tail, the parakeet I saw in Graves Park that afternoon stood out a mile as it flew between the trees. I’d expected to see nothing but fat, grey pigeons, and there’s a lesson in that for small business owners and startups:
Sometimes, people will notice your service or product more if you show it off in an unexpected place.
An advertising legend agrees…
Paul Arden was creative director at the famous agency Saatchi & Saatchi. In his bestselling book ‘It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be’, he said:
“Putting a motorbike ad in a ladies’ fashion magazine or even an ad for lingerie in a motorbike magazine may not be such a silly idea.”
Paul Arden, advertising legend
Some thoughts:
An accountant could post videos on the social media platform TikTok that’s used mostly by younger people, teaching little-known money-saving tips
Rather than setting up a stall at a food festival surrounded by competitors, street food vendors could book a place at an engineering convention, where there’ll be loads of hungry customers
Instead of advertising in the back of the city newspaper, a gardener could stick up some posters in local chip shops over the summer, when people are more likely to be eating outside in their (messy) gardens
When I first saw a parakeet in Graves Park, flying alongside all the other boring birds, I was gobsmacked. If I’d seen it in its native Asia, I might not have blinked an eye, and that’s worth remembering…
Next time you need to advertise your products or services, consider whether you’ll make more sales by promoting them somewhere unexpected. Or to put it another way:
If you want to succeed in business, don’t be a pigeon. Be a parakeet.
Until next time,
Adam
