The Ad went on to also provide a promo offer. Buy an Add pen and get an Add Save Tree Pencil free. Now that was something that caught my attention. "Save Tree Pencil" is essentially one of those mechanical pencils (also called the clicky pencil), which doesn't have the two pieces of wooden strips glued to the graphite stick in between. They used to be around, even when I was a student. So I looked them up, to find out how long they have been in circulation. According to wiki, these pencils were invented in Britain in, hold your breath, 1822 !! I was a little taken aback, and checked on when Pencils were invented, turns out sometime in the 1500s.
(image courtesy : wikipedia & www.staedtler.com)
Now here's the point. We've all been using the typical wooden pencil for many many years, ok, make allowances for making the big shift to pens when we moved to high school, but still for something or the other. Most of us would've used the clicky pencils too, for not wanting to sharpen the wooden pencil or for making us look good in front of our not so fortunate classmates. However, it has never occurred to people to portray it from a 'tree-saver' perspective (I could be wrong here, but I haven't come across this myself). Environmental awareness is all the buzz today; carbon footprints, carbon credits, etc are bandied about in casual conversation and such a simple proposition was just waiting to be taken: 'Relevance'.
The guys over at Add pens or their agency or whosoever could be credited with this, has no idea what they have with them. It could become seriously big if it touches the right chords.
p.s: While digging around, also learnt that, while The black core of pencils is still referred to as “lead,” it never contained the element 'Lead' and contrary to popular notions, putting it into one's mouth is absolutely safe :-)
(image courtesy - Thinker Labs)
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