Of all the farm animals featured in television advertising, the Serta sheep are among the cutest.
The premise of the ads is that Serta brand mattresses are so comfortable that users no longer need to count sheep to fall asleep. This has put an entire flock of animated sheep out of work, and the ads feature their various complaints about the situation.
So much for fantasy.
In the Netherlands, a Dutch on-line hotel reservations company has introduced a real flock of sheep to the world of advertising, reports the International Herald Tribune. Each sheep wears the Hotels.nl logo on a royal blue, waterproof blanket that is attached to its body by Velcro.
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According to the Tribune, “the company spends one Euro, or about $1.23 US a day, per sheep and sponsors about 144 sheep in flocks throughout the Netherlands.”
There’s no word on the effect this has had on traffic adjacent to sheep pastures (other than more ewe turns) but Hotels.nl reports a sales increase of 15 percent since it put the sheep in sweaters.
But all has not been placid in the pasture. The sweatered sheep contravene a bylaw in the town of Skarsterlan that bans advertising along highways and it has levied fines of 1,000 Euros per day.
“If we start with sheep, then next it’s cows and horses,” the Tribune quoted mayor Bert Kuiper as saying.
In point of fact, it was a horse breeder who devised the concept, says the Tribune, and his company has plans to fit cows and horses with sweaters, along with 25,000 sheep. The owners of the sheep get a share of the fees charged to the advertisers.
So let’s get this straight: to cash in on the livestock-as-billboard concept, you need a bold client, pasture along a well-travelled road, and some sheep, cattle or horses.
We begin to see the possibilities for diversification and farm income augmentation, odious though the vision may be.
That is, so long as you’re among the first to leap into the business and able to capitalize before there are farm animals bearing messages from here to who-knows-where.
There’s no reason a hotel chain here couldn’t seize upon the sheep-sleep connection. And could we see herds of dairy cows grazing placidly in pastures, all the while wearing sweaters that ask “Got Milk?”
Maybe goldenpalace.com would extend its penchant for unique advertising venues to the animal billboard idea.
The quality of stock in the field has always been the rancher’s best advertisement, but this could take it one step further; and quite possibly a step too far.
Now, who wants the job of dressing the livestock every morning?
