By now, Americans are fully aware of the current vampire craze.  Popular TV shows like True Blood and movies like Twilight prove that we have an almost unending appetite for the sexy, scary creatures.  But how do you stand out in a line-up full of garlic avoiding, night-dwelling blood suckers?  The CW network discovered just the right attention grabber for the  launch of a new show, “The Vampire Diaries.”  The network has teamed up with the Red Cross to promote the show with blood drives to take place at hundreds of highschools and colleges across the country.  The tagline for the events is “Starve a Vampire. Donate Blood.”  In addition to the blood drive, the campaign is producing and selling vampire based products: Fang Floss and 1000 VPF (Vampire Protection Factor) “sunscream,” because “sun is the #1 killer of the undead.”

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The floss and sunscreen are kinda normal marketing gimmicks, but it’s the blood drive that gets me.  That’s a killin’ it idea….take the vampire craze and use it to bolster the real-life-put-it-to-good-use blood supplies at hospitals and other medical facilities around the country.  I’m inspired by that kind of cleverness, and also by the unexpected coupling of the Red Cross with the entertainment media, to the benefit of both groups.

Instead of just draining life from others like vampires, the end result here is win win. Symbiosis.  Good entertainment and good for the blood flow, and that’s killin’ it.