This Zappos guerrilla marketing campaign is simply cool! It aroused my interest from the moment I read its title: ‘Pay with a cupcake’ that reminded me of the recently made Google’s ‘Pay with a photo’ campaign. It is really a battle between two brands. Who will be the winner?
It all started off when ‘a giant tech company’ Google ran its campaign in Austin, Texas where the brand gave free cupcakes from their food truck to anyone who tried their photo app. It became very popular! People looked happy and satisfied. Everything seemed to be going well, until Zappos, an online store that specializes in clothing and accessories, came to town.


They arrived unexpectedly, installed their #PayWithACupcake cardboard box, situated within few steps from Google truck, and started handing out various items such as watches, headphones, sunglasses and so on to all passersby in exchange for a Google cupcakes. All people needed to do was to ‘Insert Cupcake‘ into a slot on the box and ‘Be Happier’ getting better reward. Needless to say, the Zappos campaign worked! Even the cupcake truck person came to receive his prize.
It appeares like a smart move, doesn’t it? Watch out! I wouldn’t reccomend that you should do that trick with your competitors. 😉
Watch this fun video below and share your view. 🙂
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Ouch! That looks like a harsh campaign, but very clever! Haha!
Oh yes ahah! Thanks for your feedback!
Hahaha, wow!! That’s super clever of Zappos. Taking direct competition to a whole other level!
Agree! 🙂 It’s very smart move
Haha amazing!:)
Oh yes! It’s very funny 🙂
Wow 😉 smart:P
I’m glad to hear that 🙂
This is so smart!!!
I’m glad you liked it 😉
WOW! Well played game. 🙂 looks like people now love more things than a food. Haha. Would be hard for me to just drop my cupcake. lols
Really understand you 🙂 the same for me 🙂
All those cupcakes going to waste makes me sad! 😀
Oh yes, but Google didn’t expect it!
Hilarious, great bit of marketing. Nice one!
Thank you! I’m glad you love it
What an interesting campaign. Marketing creativity never ceases to amaze me.
Agree! I’m glad to hear that and thanks for your feedback!
I think this is just adorable! I’d love to receive payment in cupcakes…or macarons. Thanks for posting!
Yes, it would be great! Thanks for your feedback!
I love this!! I would love if this happened more often.
I don’t care who wins, but they need to set this up by my house please. lol
woww Zappos looks quite interesting but I don’t think it can beat Google.
So the strategy goes well with marketing the cool I bet google never expected this fro Zappos.
LOL! This is seriously smart marketing! Pay With A Cupcake also caught my attention right away too!
that’s amazing! It means they did everything right 😉