Impact Spotlight - How CHRGR Is Changing The Way Brands Interact With Their Audience

As marketing and branding fanatics, we know firsthand how hard it is to get customers to interact with our advertising. These days, the average person on the street seems to have blinders on when it comes to marketing— they just tune out as soon as they encounter a billboard, TV commercial, or banner ad. It’s something we’re constantly working to counter and it means we’re forever having to come up with new and innovative ways to get audiences to pay attention. Which is why the folks at CHRGR impressed us so damn much.

CHRGR is a cool new company that’s making a serious #PositiveImpact in the noisy world of branding. They’ve come up with an awesome system that gets their partners’ advertising in front of customer eyeballs in a way that is actually useful, valuable, and generates repeat viewings. In other words, they’ve discovered the holy grail of branding.

How does it work? Picture this…

You’re at a concert and having an absolute blast. You’re dancing, taking photos with your friends, texting to make sure everyone can meet up, and sharing live video of the show. Life couldn’t be better. Until, all of sudden, your phone sends you that dreaded 10% battery warning.

Not fun.

Now you’ll have to leave the show, ditch your friends, and try to find an outlet that isn’t already hogged by desperate music junkies and their own low battery devices. If only you had a way to charge your phone from anywhere, without having to miss out on the night’s headline act.

That’s where CHRGR comes in. They help you stay connected with your friends, enjoy the show, and have enough juice leftover to hail a Lyft at the end of the night. All you need to do is pick up a battery from the concert’s CHRGR station and you’re good to go!

But wait, what about the branding part we talked about when kicking this thing off? What does on-the-go battery power have to do with marketing?

Well, that’s where CHRGR gets really clever. They offset the cost of each portable power pack by adding the logos and advertising messages of their partner brands onto each battery. That way you can stay connected without having to actually buy any new hardware, and their partner benefits from increased brand equity and awareness… win-win!

What’s more, the CHRGR battery is yours to keep. So whether you picked one up at a concert, gym, networking event, or anywhere else… you won’t have to give it back when you leave.

That’s a win-win in our book! You get an awesome, useful piece of hardware and CHRGR’s partners get easy brand awareness and advertising distribution.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, CHRGR also gives their partners the option to include QR codes, NFC, RFID and SMS options. So not only will you have enough battery to call your rideshare at the end of the night, you could also scan the QR code on the back and instantly boot up the Lyft, Uber, or the Beat app. Or, let’s say you’re charging your phone while you record a video. Simply scan the code printed on your CHRGR battery and you’ll be dropped into Instagram, ready to instantly upload your memories.

Pretty cool, right?

We certainly think so and apparently so does the rest of the world. CHRGR hit their funding goals in just their second year of operation. They’ve managed to partner with some of the world’s coolest companies like Nike, Lyft, and Audi. Even online advertising legends like Neil Patel are impressed.

It’s not all hype though – these things work! In the case of Lyft, rolling out CHRGR batteries in New York increased customer acquisition (as in, created new Lyft users) by 10%. Not bad! Especially considering they did it in a way that was useful.

But even if you couldn’t care less about marketing ROI or customer acquisition, you can’t deny that the batteries themselves are aesthetically pleasing as hell. These aren’t anything like those ugly branded pens or fridge magnets you get at tradeshows. These are works of art.

Like just look at how cool these Red Bull batteries are:

Or how about this sick battery for Hendrick’s Gin?

Yeah, those things slay.

They don’t look like tacky, free swag… they’re sexy!  They look like something you’d have to pay real money for. 

And that’s important. By keeping the visual design tip-top, the company ensures that their users won’t ever be shy about them being seen by others. Which, if you’re trying to get advertising messages in front of eyeballs, is kind of crucial.

It’s impact brands like CHRGR that we love at Flying Saucer, because they help make advertising useful and a joy to interact with. By solving a customer need, they’ve simultaneously given their partners a way to get in front of customers by being helpful. And that’s exactly the kind of #PositiveImpact that we’re always excited to see.