• by Michael J. Ayer , Columnist, April 11, 2017

TissueBox Donations (TBD) has decided to resurrect a very low-tech way to engage with the millions of teenagers, aka Influencers, out there who have not looked up since they got their first smartphone. TBD has a massive number of schools to which it donates tissue boxes that sit in front of millions of teens all day long. They are mini-billboards inside classrooms that can easily be used to reach the un-engageable teen audience. 

While every company wants to reach teens, with each fleeting digital moment, it becomes harder and more expensive. Many schools allow smartphones to be on and in use, even in the classroom, as long as it is not disruptive, or used during testing. So while marketers fight for the eyeballs of teens and try to establish a bond, they continue to spend millions hoping for brand or ad message impact. In a school setting, what with the limited amount of time teens will actually use their smartphones, it becomes an impossible task.

Enter TissueBox Donations. TBD combines old-fashioned, low-tech billboarding (four sides of a cube tissue box), cause-related messaging (cyberbullying, don’t text and drive, stay off drugs, etc.), all while donating free products to schools (viewed as a cool charitable act) that will stand out and be seen. A trifecta of effective teen marketing ideas all wrapped up in colorful “can’t miss” packaging. 

Starting in Q3 2017, TBD is launching its “Free Messages for Free Minds” PSA campaigns targeting up to 10 million teens in more than 15,000 participating middle and high schools. Tissue box production and distribution is 100% paid for by sponsors. Sponsor names and/or logos can appear on each tissue box, visible but not prominent. 

TissueBox Donations was born out of a retail line of licensed facial tissues for kids called Sneezers. Sneezers boxes were emblazoned with Looney Tunes, Blues Clues, Barbie, Sesame Street and Rugrats, and appealed to mothers with small kids. Sold at Walmart, Target, CVS, Kroger and most every retailer in the grocery, drug and mass sectors, Sneezers started to lose market share to Kleenex and eventually lost its shelf space.

Stuck with thousands of extra licensed tissue boxes, Consumer Licensing was obligated to either destroy or donate the extra boxes no longer sold at retail. It decided to blindly donate the tissue boxes to middle and high schools. Each carton was donated with a sticker that read Free Tissue Boxes for your classrooms. More than 90% of the middle and high schools that received free tissue boxes emailed a thank-you note and asked for more, or to be put on the list for free boxes of tissues.

After a few months, the opt-in school list grew to a rather large number of schools representing millions of teens. Tissue Box Donations was founded, the list of participating schools grew and they had a few customers that wanted to help the schools while engaging with teens — Lions Gate Films, Virgin Mobile and the Discovery Channel, to name a few.

Now after four years of hibernation, a revitalized and fresh list of schools, TBD wants to use the boxes to launch their Free Messages for Free Mind campaigns that will engage the very high-tech teen market with a very low-tech delivery of cause-related messages sponsored by a select few companies and/or brands. Today, teen influencers can Snapchat a screenshot of a PSA on the side of their classrooms’ tissue boxes, and, the big-bad corporate sponsor may just get a digital nod of approval.