Role as Advertising Medium and Marketing Tools

Owing to the worldwide movement of postage stamps to all households round the globe, postal administrations have been quick to use them as marketing tools. Advertising on the back of the postage stamps started as way back as in the 1890s, specially by New Zealand and these stamps are a collector’s delight since each advertisement is meticulously preserved.

The face of the stamp is not normally used for advertisements, but the theme is integrated with the design, as for instance, stamps on the national air carriers such as the stamp on Inauguration of Indian Airlines Airbus of December 1976, Air India Boeing 747 Air mail issue of October 1979, or Qantas’s 50th anniversary issued by Australia Post. The usual area used is the selvage of stamps, the booklets, brochures, the interleaving and covers.

Market research in both developing and developed countries has revealed that mail with postage stamps on them are invariably opened by the addressees themselves, in contrast to mail that are machine franked. Consequently, a number of postal administrations have begun to use space on postal stationery as advertising media. In the business sector too, a collection of stamps is often given as a gift item along with other products or services sold and hence is a direct marketing tool.

Since postage stamps are pieces of miniature art in themselves, they are also used as a medium of communication and for promotion of the art, artifacts and other treasures of a nation. Some instances are the set on the paintings of Mithila, Indian jewelry, places promoting tourism like the multicolours on Centres of Culture and Tourism of June 1997, and many, many others.

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