How “Cards Against Humanity” pwned Marketing in 2013
If you’ve never heard of Cards Against Humanity (CAH), then you’re probably a boring, prudish person with boring, prudish friends. And that’s okay, I’m just saying.
CAH is what Mad Libs would be if it was turned into a card game and everything was dirty and awful. Basically, it’s the best card game you’ll ever play, aside from Texas Hold’em.
Black Friday Special
For their Black Friday deal, they decided to raise their prices, instead of offering the expected discount. It worked and they had amazing sales.
While that was brilliant, it didn’t come close to their amazing old school postal mail campaign.
12 Days of Holiday Bullshit
CAH presented anyone with $12 to burn the opportunity to get twelve random gifts from them in the mail. It was dubbed the 12 Days of Holiday Bullshit. I of course immediately threw my money at them.
What followed were twelve envelopes sent over several days to my home. I don’t know how much they spent on this campaign, but between the postage and what was in the envelopes, it had to be well over the price I paid for it. On top of that, 100,000 people participated in this campaign! That means they received $1.2 million dollars and it probably cost them $1.5 to $2 million to do it. Thems big numbers!
The campaign was very memorable, and now their brand is laser etched into my brain. Well done!
Here’s a list of my favorite gifts, which also include the personalized card they made with my name on it (as seen at the beginning of this post).
A custom made cartoon newspaper
A new game I’ll never play
Some cards with a little political edge
The best card of all, a donation to DonorsChoose.org
You can see their latest holiday ridiculousness at holidaybullshit.com.