‘Companies who pay a small fortune to become an official Wimbledon product might well be wondering how Proctor and Gamble, makers of Pringles crisps, managed to do it for nothing yesterday’.

…Well Mash that’s how!

With a very short turn around, Mash and our partner agency Touch, devised a cunning sampling activity, capitalising on the popularity of the Wimbledon championships. On Wednesday our team of samplers dressed in branded tennis whites (mandatory don’t you know) distributed over 20,000 of the distinctive Pringles tubes (carrying the slogan ‘These are NOT tennis balls!’) to lucky fans heading into the All England Club.

Supported by our tennis legend look a likes, including Roger Federer, Boris Becker and Bjorn Borg, and the staple Sir Cliff of course, the very generous samples proved a huge success with tennis loyalists and media alike.

With coverage from the Telegraph, Washington Business Journal (beats us?), Open Salons Understanding Marketing and the Mail Online, the activity was hailed as a ‘huge marketing coup’, a ‘brilliant piece of ambush marketing’ this simple campaign has proven very effective.

Concluding as I started, here’s a quote from the Telegraph ‘The ubiquitous Pringles tins were quite clearly the most visible brand on show all day’. Mission accomplished.

To see some photos of the activity, please visit our Flickr site.  www.flickr.com/photos/mashr/sets/