While we found advertisements that play off of the economic hype are slow to catch on at the local level, one example was brought to our attention today. Richmond Piano has been running an ad on WCVE Public Radio for about a month that advises listeners: “make a sound investment: play the piano.”
“We’ve been taking the humorous approach and offering free gift wrapping for all piano sales,” said marketing director Carolyn Steffen.
Originally the ads were supposed to read “sound recession-proof investment”, but broadcast regulators nixed it because they took it for a solicitation. Richmond Piano said they plan on running a similar round of ads starting in January.
Steffen said their marketing strategy seems to be working; the store sold four pianos last weekend.
In case you missed it, we ran a BizSense story today about recession themed advertising.
