Remote-Controlled Marketing

I recently received a box from BMC Software, an enterprise software provider focused mostly on Business Service Management, whatever that is.

The box was a marketing effort, presumably targeted at professionals who would likely be interested in BMC’s offerings, or at least willing to have them in for a dog-n-pony and introductions to other ‘players’ within the organization.

In the box was a 1/10 scale remote-controlled Ferrari Enzo. A cool little toy, I guess, if you’re into that. Even had a sticker with my name on each door. I assume they’ve done their homework and determined that their market is at least partially populated by people who like remote-controlled cars.

So what’s the clever marketing trick employed by BMC?

They didn’t include the remote control with the car—the thing that makes it go. If you want the remote you have to call BMC and agree to a meeting.

So the marketing here is interesting. I don’t know what these cars sell for, but it’s not trivial like a postcard or some other routine mailing that these companies do. They actually spent some money here, which makes me think they needed to be pretty targeted in their approach, right? Know your market, spend those dollars wisely. But this marketing campaign assumes a few things about the recipient:

He/she is likely to be in the market for BMC products and services
He/she is in a position within the organization to influence high-dollar software projects
He/she might be encouraged to contact BMC and maybe even buy something simply because BMC so generously provided him/her with a non-functioning plastic toy car

I’d be interested to see the ROI on this campaign. Is someone really going to be influenced to do business with a vendor because they got this thing in the mail? It doesn’t even work. Maybe this pays off for BMC, I don’t know. Strange bit of marketing though, in my opinion. I gave the car away.