Spotted in London this week - Lastminute.com were handing out suntan lotion to city staff in Finsbury Circus from an ice cream van. Notch up 1 point on Remarkableness for them as it no doubt had people going back to the office talking about it. I wonder how much it affected sales though? I'm sure Hitwise Heather could tell us but ultimately they're building brand affinity rather than immediate sales I suppose.
If anything, I think it is an opportunity missed. As you say, a great way of grabbing brand attention, but I bet nothing they give out points to any special offers or specific landing page.
lastminute.com/suntanlotion, lastminute.com/pinkvan or something of that ilk would be a great traffic driver - after all, you can't walk past a lastminute.com offer in the high street can you? (in fact that's a good question - can you?!)
At least that way, you'd get some sort of tangible response!
Urban purple cow (well, sort of lavender purple)...
very good point Paul - they did miss the oppty to put a campaign specific URL on the van/handouts