Marketing ideas to jump start hobby?

DaClyde said:

A-men. There should be some sort of federal law that requires baseball cards be include in boxes of Cracker Jack and Bazooka. Calbee has been doing the cards with potato chips and popcorn for 40 years now. What is Topps' excuse for the lack of cards in Bazooka?

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I know a bunch here would eat the heck out of some potato chips if they had a pack of cards attached to them. Myself included. LOL

Just too add another thought here. I would really like to see redemption cards put into packs for actual game used items such as jerseys, bats, etc. I know we aren't to fond of redemption cards but hopefully these would be for items the company already has. I watched a box break once of Topps UFC cards and the guy pulled a redemption for an autographed fighting glove. I would think something like this would be done way more than it is. Surely if someone pulled a card for say a game used Ruth bat or something big along those lines it would get a company plenty of free advertising from news outlets and such.

Cards on potato chip bags??
Great just what the hobby needs, more fatties

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BBCgalaxee said:

Cards on potato chip bags??
Great just what the hobby needs, more fatties

Sent from my HTCONE using Freedom Card Board mobile app

Click to expand...

Look up a guy called TakaTanakaGiants on YouTube he has showed some videos of them. He sent me a few BBM Darvish cards with some BBM packs I bought from him. Also sent me a Sumo Wrestlers card as well.

How about a rewards program using upc labels?

I mean, they do it for so many products from cereal, to soda etc etc.

I think Pacific was the last to do it.

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If I were a card manufacturer, what better marketing than to release a card product guaranteed to have zero redemptions and be able to tout that in advertising, product sell sheets and on the hobby/retail boxes themselves!

Probably would be the first product without redemptions in almost a decade!

Forget potato chips, how about putting packs in cereal boxes? Get 'em hooked early

I was actually thinking about this during slow traffic. All these ideas are small potatoes. You want to get people back into the stores, you have to show them how awesome cards are. And you can't do that by putting 3 logoless cards in the bottom of a box of cereal. We need a movie. When Field of Dreams came out, the price of the Shoeless Joe Jackson Cracker Jack card exploded. We need to have a major motion picture that shows a likeable, bankable star collecting cards, and actually featuring cards. There have been collecting-focused movies that were very good, like The Ninth Gate or Utz, but old Satanic books and porcelain figures aren't cool.

But picture this. Opening shot with closeups of nice vintage and modern cards in nice cases or slabs, male voiceover starts:
1957 Topps Frank Robinson rookie, Hall of Famer, Near-mint minus, $200.
1968 Topps Nolan Ryan rookie, Hall of Famer. Jerry Koosman was also a very good pitcher. Very good, about $500. But I bought it for $350.
1981 Topps Fernando Valenzuela rookie. He was so popular as a rookie in 1981, it forced Topps to put out a boxed set at the end of the season, rather than make people wait till the next spring to get his card.
2001 Bowman Chrome Albert Pujols rookie. The big one. Out of nowhere, the best hitter of his generation. Gem Mint 9.5. Four thousand dollars.
1989 Fleer Billy Ripken, black box. See that black box on the knob of his bat? He wrote a bad word on his bat and they didn't see it until after the cards were in the stores. They fixed it in later printings like this, but back in the schoolyard, kids would've killed for this card.

Female VO:You collected these your whole life?

Male VO: Yes, with a few years off in my teens. Discovered girls, you know. But I came back to it after college.

The camera pulls back to show Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone lying on their stomachs naked in bed, Ryan showing her the cornerstones of his collection. He puts them back into the shoebox (product placement TBD), puts the box under the bed, they embrace, fade to black.

Then 87 minutes of other stuff happens.

.... the chris levy story

How about... Kate Upton. Don't really know how it connects with cards, really doesn't matter...just have Kate Upton in a commercial holding cards for all I care, as long as she is showing some sideboob or something...BOOM, instant sales increase.

I know I know, childish.

Anyone else?

I own an lcs and can't tell you how many non collectors, New collectors and former collectors have absolutely no clue about Gu and autos or even numbered/ cool looking cards.

When they see my huge selection of game used and auto cards, I have to explain to them what they are.

And even after that, they STILL think the autos are stamps.

And when I explain a numbered card, they are amazed cards are so rare.

To me, THAT is the hobby's biggest hurdle and without sufficient advertising, it will always be.

Lastly, the commercials topps shows on mlbn for bowman just doesn't cut it at all.

No mention of values, no mention of autos, nothing. Just plain "same old same old" base cards.

You know what's sad? The fact that you can take the current bowman commercial and just substitute the current players shown with griffey, knoblauch, plantier and maas and it would be exactly the same as 24 years ago.

I'd say our hobby has changed immensely over that time span.