Will These Little Rubber Duckies Revolutionize Marketing?
March 12th, 2010 | General
You may have heard of Where’s George, a website that lets people track dollar bills as they circulate from place to place.
Collectivus is the newest installment in the track-and-release genre, its mascot the little rubber duck. I recently met with some of the Collectivus founders at a New Tech Meetup, and fell in love with the concept.
Why Rubber Ducks?
Collectivus “ducks” were inspired by a cargo ship that sank in China and released thousands of rubber duckies into the wild. Years later, these ducks are still popping up all over the world.
More recently, NASA scientists tagged several rubber ducks and placed them on glaciers to track their movement into open water. So when the Collectivus team was thinking of an object to release and track, rubber ducks seemed like the perfect fit.
How Does it Work?
The Collectivus team labeled each duck with its own name, identification code and instructions for tracking it via the Collectivus website. (Check out Carla, below.) It then began releasing these ducks to friends and strangers in central Pennsylvania.
Right now, the program is still in pre-beta mode, so its creators are busy gathering metrics on where the ducks are traveling, how they’re getting passed around, and which ducks are never heard from again.
What Do Ducks and Marketing Have in Common?
Eventually, they’d like to use the idea for marketing campaigns. Imagine a little rubber duck carrying a coupon code for, say, a free frappuccino at the new coffee shop downtown. You could use it yourself, then give it to a friend.
Unlike paper coupons, which are easy to lose and can rarely be shared, Collectivus “thingies” could serve as unique promotional tools that track a brand’s reach each step of the way. Plus, they’re eye-catching: how much fun would it be if you found that little plastic duck on a park bench? And maybe in addition to getting a free coffee, you could log online and see who left it there?
Collectivus may eventually start releasing things other than rubber ducks. Perhaps instead of a rubber duck with a coupon code for a free frappuccino, it’ll be a plastic coffee bean, or a toy version of the store’s mermaid mascot. The possibilities are endless.
While Collectivus is still feeling its way, they’ve injected fun back into marketing at a time when traditional ads are leaving people jaded.
Now it’s Your Turn
I’ve got a Collectivus duck to give away. To enter, just leave a comment telling me what cool place you’ll register your duck at. I’ll pick my favorite next week – Friday, March 24th.
Edit: Thanks to all who entered! The contest is now closed, and Tangerine is now on her way to Clara in Asheville, NC. Track her progress!
Kelly Watson is one woman on a mission to show the world that marketing your small business doesn't have to suck. 
Clara says:
By checking the Collectivus site, I discovered, to my great surprise and dismay, that there appear to be no Rubber Duckie Thingies in Asheville, NC. Asheville, which seems to appear on every list of “cool places to live” (stop already, or we'll start being listed on “most crowded places to live”) is exactly the kind of location in which Rubber Duckie Thingies would thrive and prosper. And Ashevillians are exactly the type of people to rally round them and their cause.
Asheville is in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains, so I can see myself taking my RDF with me to my favorite hiking trail. Or, for something completely different, I can escort her to the Grove Park Inn and deposit her outside the door of the room that was F. Scott Fitzgerald's when he visited here regularly in the 30s.
March 13th, 2010 at 12:19 am
adamhann says:
Hmmm, where would I leave one? I would potentially take one on a trip somewhere interesting to see where it would go. (Unfortunately I don't have any trips planned until the summer). I wouldn't be afraid to leave it a a cool coffee shop either, just to see where it goes from there.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Deana Hager says:
I could totally see this being a Lancaster County, PA trend! Awesome idea!
March 19th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
lancotf says:
I would take it with me to Idaho in April and leave it in the lobby or on an outside bench to see if it may return from there.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:37 pm