Barter Case Histories

Colgate Palmolive

To get a bigger share in areas with sluggish sales, Colgate was able to leverage their inventory of Palmolove Soap for advertising in a promotion at several supermarkets across the country whereby they were able to barter for vacation prizes for a contest they ran and also did a great grass roots print and radio campaign that escalated their sales in slumping areas. They were so successful with their Palmolive soap line that they expanded the campaign to encompass their other lines as well.

Simon & Shuster

Simon & Shuster were just about to liquidate 145,000 copies of one of their over printed books for .05 cents a piece instead of the $7.00 wholesale price they would have normally received. After learning about barter, they were able to sell the entire inventory for $7.00 a book or $1,015,000 in Cable TV and print advertising. This, along with other products and services they were able to obtain through barter channels, gave them full value back instead of dumping the books for $7,250.

Chrysler Corp.

In the early 1980's, many Chrysler Dealers around the country were going out of business, which left a large number of brand new cars sitting on the lots ready to be sent back to Chrysler. The cars were used as trade to offset a huge cash portion of Mr. Iacocca's five billion dollar loan quarantee program by providing national TV advertising.

Hardee's Restaurants

In a fierce battle with competitors McDonald's and Burger King, Hardee's needed to launch a massive advertising campaign to maintain their market share. They used 900,000 pounds of chicken and 600,000 pounds of sirloin strip to subsidize their promotions.

Walt Disney

When Walt Disney wanted to promote their musical Beauty & the Beast, they turned to barter as a means to offset a good deal of advertising expenses. They used a blend of show tickets and cash to achieve their goal. Disney was able to barter tickets to get print ads placed in inflight magazines. As a result, Walt Disney filled more seats than they could have hoped. Broadway Media was instrumental in facilitating this transaction.