• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 16, 2012

Yeah, easier said than done, right, but that’s exactly how Energizer Personal Care Assistant Brand Manager Ben Pagel said how he got his Playtex Feminine Care (you know sanitary napkins) brand into health and fitness clubs.

“A sales guy got to my boss,” Pagel confided during the opening panel at the DPAA’s Digital Media Summit, and just as quickly you could almost see the revelation cross his face that he was just telling a roomful of digital place-based vendors how to get their feet inside his door.

“I don’t actually know how that interaction went,” Pagel explained to panel moderator David Verklin, adding, “She felt there was an opportunity.”

And the rest was history? Well, sort of. Pagel still needed to figure out how to fund the big idea, which didn’t actually have a budgetary line item.

“I was actually able to sell it in under a sampling budget,” he shared.

“Did you hear that,” Verklin chided the audience, “a sampling budget – for tampons.”

Pagel added that while there were samples “involved” in the initiative, which promoted the Playtex sanitary line in Zoom Media’s health and fitness club network, the main focus was place-based.