“For most people, it’s not commonplace to walk into the restroom at their office with reading materials in tow. (Note I said “most people.”)
“If reading is going to take place in an office restroom, materials generally are supplied by the company. Why not take advantage of your momentary captive audience and give them some useful information while they take care of business?”
i read this post on employee benefit news with equal parts delight and bemusement. i admit it. i’ve had this thought myself. there are few places where you have a captive audience, let alone a willingly captive audience. the bathroom is definitely one of them. why not take advantage of it?
IKEA does with customers. you walk in and BAM! there’s all of this information about their mommy-baby products. and the products are there, too, so you can test them out right away. (gee, i may be on to something here. hmmm. what HR benefit could you test-drive in the bathroom?)
i do think it’s a great idea, as long as it relates to employees’ lives and not the company’s. i’d also push it a bit further and go with traditional toilet communications, not corporate. that means graffiti on the wall, baby. now you’re talking eye-catching.
f
[image: the cubikiwi]
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
We did this at my last company with great success. The content was refreshed every two weeks and it was always company related, often with a strong element of employee benefit, such as the ride to work scheme, recruitment bounty awards, and staff parties etc. We even sold a couple of fairly expensive tables to a charity quiz night to external partners who happened to be ‘passing through’.
Graffiti is not something I’d even considered – why not push it even further by providing the materials for interactive feedback? I guess the health & safety Nazis would be on to us like a shot, but could be fun no?
jon, i consider that content to be employee-related. they’re all of interest to the employee in a personal way. and yeah, i love the idea of graffiti and letting that be open to all. social media brought back to basics!
f
I remember when Girls For A Change did this in the bathroom stalls at the Nat’l Conf to send a positive body image message on the mirrors w/removable post-its…VERY effective. So much so that AboutFace created REMOVABLE STATIC CLINGS to launch a covert dressing room guerilla mktg tactic in retail venues for mind/body wellness: http://about-face.org/mc/actions/dressingroom.shtml
Interactive aspect intrigues too…
i’ve used static clings before…in the bathroom…for a walking challenge. we also put them climbing the walls, the walkways and so on. they’re a lot of fun and definitely effective!
i thought all we needed in dressing rooms was better lighting? LOL.
f
we’ve done this w/ our clients, too — the restroom marketing. it is effective but definitely has to be fun. one of the campaigns we did was around “look who smiled because they enrolled in their benefits” — and it was a flier w/ like a 4″ x 4″ space cut out. this then, of course, was placed on the mirror.
definitely got attention.
Hey Fran! Great post. I actually wrote about this as well as it makes complete sense! I think the trick will be to create communications that are fun and bring something different to the readership so they look forward to the next in”stall”ment! 🙂 http://bit.ly/eZ9oRF
mark and chris, fun…or funny…is key. so is making it matter or relevant to employees.thanks for sharing the link, chris.
f