• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, November 26, 2007

Philips Electronics is a company that produces marketing strategies that are heavy on brand recall, light on intrusive ads. Sounds impossible, but let's begin with a walk down memory lane.

In 2005, the company purchased the ad space between the cover and table of contents in Time magazine so readers could actually find the TOC rather than rifle through pages of ad space before locating it. That year, the brand also purchased all of the ad space during "60 Minutes," but only used half of the time bought to run ads, allowing the show to lengthen stories.

An attempt to take its simplicity campaign to the movie screen failed in 2006 when Screenvision declined an offer from Philips to purchase four minutes of pre-movie ad time to run a 15-second spot.

Undeterred, this year Philips Electronics teamed up with the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. in an effort to aid frenzied shoppers on Black Friday and throughout the holiday season.

The "Philips Simplicity Parking Program," developed by Carat, enables shoppers to send a text message to a designated number once they park their car. Drivers will then receive a message on their phone with information on where they parked.

On average, the Mall of America aids 50 shoppers a day who forgot where they parked; on Black Friday, this number soars to between 300 and 400 lost shoppers.

This might come off as a rather simplistic campaign, but think of it this way: the Mall of America is 4.2 million square feet, houses 520 stores and 12,500 parking spaces. The mall should have a system like this year-around, don't you think, considering that 40% of Mall shoppers are not local residents? I'm sure it wouldn't take much for me to get lost there.

Then again, maybe that's the point of this campaign: allowing for simple and stress-free shopping -- and consumers who may remember Phillips for providing that experience.