Plastic Surgery Advertising: Winner by a nose.

Rhinoplasty with your morning cup of joe?

 
This coffee cup nose job is an ad for a plastic surgeon. While there's no denying that this type of promotion is clever and eye catching, you have to ask yourself if the expense is worth the benefit. In this case, with caveats, I would think that it might have been. In many other cases I would say no.

It's clever. It's funny. It's unexpected. These are exactly the attributes you look for in any type of guerilla campaign. Unfortunately, this type of ad also has some drawbacks.

The cost of this type of campaign is high. It was suggested and executed by an advertising agency. Ad agency's love, love, love, plastic surgery and other accounts that are 'fun' for the creative teams. In fact, this ad has appeared in a number of advertising magazines. Ad agencies use these types of campaigns to collect accolades for themselves.

For some business, this is exactly the type of quirky marketing that works. But, as far as I know, this plastic surgeon is a single location. A small business is probably in a situation where the opportunity cost for producing a campaign like this makes it a poor use of available funds. 

While the ad is cleaver it's also: high cost, limited distribution, and has a low probability of being utilized by the target market. My guess is that number of patients brought in was dwarfed by the cost of this campaign. If this campaign worked, it was from the secondary benefits that this campaign received.