Advertising
Throughout most of the company's history, Staples employed, in its American commercials and advertising promotions, the slogan "Yeah, we've got that.", signifying their wide selection of products. This slogan was retired in 2003, to be replaced with "That was easy." Expanding on that theme, 2005 ads featured a large red push-button marked "easy". In the UK, Staples had used the slogan "You want it. We've got it"; they have now changed it to "That was Easy".
Following a television campaign featuring the 'Easy Button', it was turned into a real product (available in English "easy", French "simple", Spanish "fácil" and German "einfach easy"). These buttons were shipped to stores in the US, Canada and Germany starting in the fall of 2005.
In March 2011, Home Depot was found to be copying the "easy Button" at a store in Edwardsville, IL.
The Staples Snowbot was an advertising character that appeared in the United States, in television and print advertising during the 2000 and 2001 Christmas seasons.
The Snowbot was a robot shaped like a snowman who refuses to let go of the inkjet printer he has fallen in love with. After the printer is wrestled from his grasp, the robot utters a monotone "Weeping. Weeping." He is consoled by a Staples employee who offers him a surge protector or a computer mouse (depending on the ad) instead.
The robot's "Weeping. Weeping." catchphrase briefly became a popular meme on the Internet, and the ad itself was parodied in an American 2002 Christmas ad for Dell Computers, in which a robot hassles a shopper (including striking him with a candy cane) when he attempts to purchase a PC at an unnamed office supplies retailer.
Another ad style is used during its annual back-to-school campaign, in which the Christmas song "It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" is played while parents joyously shop for school supplies for their children, used for several years beginning in 1994.
During the 2008 holiday season, Staples advertising for the first time engaged Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms. The company created a character named "Coach Tom" to promote its “Gift it for Free” sweepstakes, in which 10,000 Staples customers won up to $5,000 in merchandise.
Read more about this topic: Staples Inc.
Famous quotes containing the word advertising:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“Now wait a minute. You listen to me. I’m an advertising man, not a red herring. I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex- wives, and several bartenders dependent on me. And I don’t intend to disappoint them all by getting myself slightly killed.”
—Ernest Lehman (b.1920)
“The susceptibility of the average modern to pictorial suggestion enables advertising to exploit his lessened power of judgment.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)