Easy Ride

In Consumed: The Easy Button: An ad campaign’s comedy prop crosses over to retail.

About two years ago, the office-supply chain Staples began a new advertising campaign. According to Shira Goodman, Staples’ top marketing executive, the chain decided to peddle the perception that it’s a particularly easy place to shop. “All of our ad gurus got together and said, ‘How do we make this amorphous concept of “easy” very tangible, so our consumers can really hang on to it?’ ” The answer was a series of television commercials showing various people accomplishing tedious or onerous tasks, instantly, by pressing a big red button that said, “Easy.” The commercials were, in other words, silly prop-comedy gags. And the outcome? Among other things, demand from consumers for the prop. About seven months after the commercials started, the Easy Button migrated onto the shelves at Staples, where it was priced at $4.99. Goodman says the chain has sold nearly 1.5 million of them to date. …

Continue reading at the NYT Magazine site via this no-registration-required link.

Additional links: Easy Button ads; Easy Button YouTube videos; blogger’s videos about Staples hassles (referenced in the column), parts 1, 2, and 3.

Additional note: I never would have written this column if not for the responses received to this earlier Murketing post about the Easy Button. Sincere thanks to those who commented and/or emailed me about it.