What if I told you that you could make $70,000 selling nothing?
No product.
No service.
No value.
No scam.
No charity.
Just nothing.
And, if that wasn’t enough, THIS company actually did it in 2016, on the BIGGEST shopping day of the year; Black Friday!
People were handing them money left, right, and center, knowing well they were not getting ANYTHING in return.
Who is this company and what did they do to get people to pay them?
Marketing Madness
You’ve probably heard of Cards Against Humanity, the party game for horrible people, and their outrageous marketing campaigns on Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving when millions of Americans go crazy for discounts and deals.
In previous years, Cards Against Humanity has done things like:
Raising the price of their game by $5
Selling boxes of literal bullsh*t
Selling 30,000 boxes of nothing but cards that say “nothing”
Selling their customers’ personal data to the highest bidder
How To Sell Nothing
In 2016, Cards Against Humanity did something even more outrageous: They sold nothing for $5.
That’s right, nothing.
On their website, they announced their Black Friday deal with a simple message: “The greatest Black Friday gift of all is buying nothing. We’re offering that for the rock-bottom price of $5. How can you afford NOT to seize this incredible opportunity?”
They also added a FAQ section that answered some questions like:
What am I getting for $5?
Nothing.Is this some kind of joke?
No.What if I don’t buy anything?
Then you’ll have an extra $5.
They also included a live stream of their office where they showed how they were spending the money they received from their customers. They spent the money on things like:
A sword
A massage chair
A 4K TV
A drone
A donation to Wikipedia
They also gave some money to their employees as a bonus.
The campaign was a huge success. Cards Against Humanity raised over $70,000 from more than 15,000 customers who willingly paid for nothing. They also got a lot of media attention and social media buzz.
They also made some charity donations, like they did the previous year when they sold boxes of literal bullsh*t and donated the profits to Heifer International, a non-profit that provides livestock to developing communities.
But why did people buy nothing?
What was the secret behind their success?
Well, there are a few possible reasons:
They had a loyal fan base that loved their brand and their humor
They created a lot of curiosity and buzz around their campaign
They used scarcity and urgency to make people act fast
They tapped into the psychology of irrationality and paradox
But most importantly, they did something different.
They broke the rules of conventional marketing and challenged the expectations of their customers.
They showed that sometimes, less is more.
And sometimes, nothing is everything.
So what can you learn from this?
Well, you can’t just copy what they did and expect the same results.
That would be boring and predictable.
You have to find your own unique way of standing out from the crowd and creating value for your customers.
You have to be creative and innovative.
You have to be willing to take risks and experiment with new ideas.
You have to be yourself and have fun.
That’s how you make something out of nothing.
Working with constraints is what allows you to think out of the box!
Remember, nothing is impossible.
Except for buying nothing from Cards Against Humanity.
They’re not doing that again.
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Until next week
Cheers,
Ashar