Advertising and Cool Free Stuff!

Free is the new trend in advertising. Due to an all out war to get the consumer's attention some companies are opting to give products and services away for free (some for a limited time, but hey, beggars can't be choosers). Check out some of these cool freebies that are being offered by companies to advertise their products. 

FedEx Office (formerly known as Kinko's) is extending a helping hand to job seekers today: free resume printing. Customers can print up to 25 black-and-white copies of their resume at any of the company's 1,600+ stores across the United States.  www.fedex.com/us/office

Gitchers is essentially a database of people who want free T-shirts, either for themselves or for their dogs (special canine T-shirts are distributed through the site as well). To sign up, consumers tell Gitchers what type of shirt they're interested in--featuring the logo of a favorite brand or website, for example--along with key demographic information such as their birthday, gender and location. www.gitchers.com .

Shadow Notebook is a five-subject notebook that gets cobranded with participating colleges and universities across the US and distributed by the school at the start of each semester. The university's logo appears on the cover, and pages of school-related maps and information get included within. Thirteen four-colour, full-page advertisements, meanwhile, act as subject dividers in each notebook, giving advertisers the means to engage students while they are a captive audience in the learning environment.  www.absnotebooks.com

FreeHand Advertising distributes free note-taking paper to students on their way to class. Each page is branded with the same type of horizontal ad you see on websites, only these are visible for at least the duration of a college lecture, and longer if students refer back to their notes.  www.freehandads.com

Everystockphoto.com is a search engine for free photos. These come from many sources and are license-specific. You can view a photo's license by clicking on the license icon, below and left of photos. Membership is free, without advertising, and allows you to rate, tag, collect and comment on photos. www.everystockphoto.com.

Another great free stock photo site is www.stockvault.net

How can you offer free products or services to entice customers? Are there target markets like students or Mom's that you want to have eyeing your products everyday? Think outside of the box about the items they use daily and come up with a new way to market to them. Maybe advertising on free diapers to Moms or advertising baby formula on free baby bottles? There are endless options! Get creative!