Lint Rollers Made Of Pets (Not Just Pet Hair)

If you have long hair, pets, or an infestation of fuzz in your home, you probably have a few lint rollers lying around. I have one in almost every room. The lint roller images you see below are part of a very creative advertising campaign, but there is a great marketing lesson behind this which is inspiring to me. Many of the lint rollers in the world are created by 3M, and that is the company this story is about.

When you look at the ads below, you are probably immediately struck with how well they are executed. Here is the interesting part… This is not the first time 3M has tried to perfect this idea. If you look at this Cat Lint Roller (from 2009) and this Dog Lint Roller (from 2011) which are both previous versions of this same idea, you’ll see that those lint rollers aren’t quite as effective. As a matter of fact, they actually look as if the idea is not completely developed yet. Each time the ads have gotten better.

This is a great example of a company sticking with an idea until it finally evolves into something that they can truly be proud of. It doesn’t always click the first time around. As Richard has written many times, often designs have to be reworked and redone, but that doesn’t mean the old ones were wastes of time or that the idea itself is bad. It simply means it needs more time to devlop. The advertising agency that came up with this version is Grey in Singapore.

The next time you get annoyed with your dog, cat or rabbit for shedding on your clothes, and you have to find your lint roller, just remember these cute little ads and realize it’s not their fault they shed so much. If you’d like to see another great example of creative advertising, click over to this Sprite Shower on the beach that I wrote about yesterday.