The
TD Waterhouse Institutional Services National Advisor Conference has grown by leaps and bounds over last year's event with the result that the exhibit space sold out months ago. This has left several potential exhibitors out in the cold with no way to market their wares other than to attend the conference in person and talk to potential distributors one by one.
The Reserve Funds, however, was not so easily dissuaded from broader forms of marketing as its director of marketing,
Eric Lansky, decided that if he could not get the advisors to come to him, he would bring the marketing materials to them ... in the form of a truck.
Lansky hired a billboard truck for the two main days of the conference to both park outside of the hotel, showcasing several panels of advertising copy touting the firm's equity fund lineup. The ad features the tag line "Think outside of the box." The plan is also to send the portable marketing machines to where advisors might be congregating after the days' events end.
While the idea is certainly innovative and well-liked by those aware of the truck's existence, the problem remains that few during the day become aware of it at all. The events and meals planned on the first full day are inside the same hotel where almost all attendees are staying, with the result that few even venture outside until after the day ends.
Lansky has been making a habit of unusual advertising lately, with the recent launch of an advertising campaign that congratulates his fellow funds (MFWire.com 1/24).
The truck made it
all the way through the beginning of the afternoon sessions parked directly
outside the hotel, but disappeared soon after. The conjecture included the
possibilities that A) the driver actually had to eat or B) the hotel frowned on
long-term parking or C) a monster truck rally arrived in town and the Reserve
truck went to visit its larger cousins. Stay tuned. 
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