A local grocery store is selling paper shamrocks for MDA starting at $1. The local Cinemark theater is selling lapel pins for $3 that support the Variety Club. Both MDA and the Variety Club are august charities that in the main serve children. Both approaches have advantages to recommend them and shortcomings to overcome. Here’s a short list of the pluses and minuses of each: A box of 100 of either the lapel pin or the shamrock is probably about the same size, meaning they take an equivalent amount of counter space. Sales of both the paper shamrock and the pins will eventually go stale. But whereas most retailers wouldn’t have many qualms about throwing the leftover paper icons in the recycle bin, it wouldn't be so easy to do the same for the Variety lapel pin because they have a higher perceived value. Paper icons, if they’re displayed in the store or theater, can have such impact that they drive more sales. But they can also make a visual mess of your establishment. Both a...
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