Fake Auto Boots Promote Parking App at SXSW

This SXSW coverage is brought to you by Red Square Agency. The agency that also brought you Frappe.

With SXSW on a seemingly endless growth curve, standing out as a marketer is becoming more and more difficult. This year many large brands erected monstrous structures, took over restaurants, built large stand-alone branded structures and hosted concerts with major artists. But what's a small app developer to do amidst marketing giants?

As we made our way from some panel to another...or maybe it was one party to another...we don't know...it all blurs together...we stumbled upon a minivan that looked like it had a boot applied to one of its wheels. On closer inspection, it turned out the boot was just a cardboard placard affixed to the tire and was promoting an app called ParkMe.

The recently launched ParkMe recommends the cheapest and closest parking based on your location. It's yet another in a long line of location-based apps that serves people on the go.

We like the simplicity and the pitch perfect strategy employed for this campaign. No one wants their car to have the dreaded boot applied because they have parked where they weren't supposed to. And the boot is most certainly an eye catching appliance just because of that fear. Additionally, the production involved in creating this campaign is right in line with the focus of the app. In other words, it's all about cheap. All about saving money.

It doesn't always take millions to market a product.

This SXSW coverage has been brought to you by Red Square, a small national agency that just happens to be located in the SXSE.