Geocache placed by business with swag

[thebarriefamily]

Hello! My family loves geocaching, and we also own a small apparel and tourism related business. One of our business mandates is to celebrate our locale through our designs for these items, and to encourage locals and visitors to get outside and enjoy our beautiful place on the world. One of the things we make is patches for sewing on clothing/backpacks,  and we thought it would be fun to fill a cache with these to give away and then gives clues to its cache name on geocaching.com via our Facebook page. OR, just randomly hide some patches in swag caches that are out there for people to find. We have zero desire to add business cards/our name to any of this, just want to encourage people out there to get outside some choice spots and maybe find a fun reward. Two questions:

- is this allowed? I know you can’t use a cache to promote a business. We honestly aren’t trying to, just want to use the fact that we manufacture some cool stuff to use as incentive. Again, won’t have any sort of marketing, buy-in or promotion attached to the cache. For example, we live by a beautiful salmon spawning River, and have a patch we designed with a bear in a river full of salmon pictured on it. We’d love to make a cache near a lovely lookout we found near the river full of swag, and launch it during spawning season in the fall.

- are we allowed to encourage people via social media to look up a cache name or co-ordinands via social media, or is this against the spirit of geocaching? 

 

Thanks for your feedback!

[+Touchstone]

Just my two cents, but I much prefer finding personal swag of this nature in just random caches, rather than just one particular cache that a cache owner has placed specifically for that purpose.  Seems more serendipitous to me that way, and inevitably, most cache owners get rather fatigued having to constantly restock their caches with cool stuff.

[+cerberus1]

We've done lots of "themed" caches, and if the commercial guidelines are followed, don't see why you can't have a "patch cache".  

 

Are the many people you'll be contacting on "social" media all geocachers ?

It may be just me, but if you plan on telling people who know nada about this hobby where caches may be  hidden, I'd be more than a little ticked...

The hobby is about the geocaches and their (hopefully) awesome locations, for members.

 

[thebarriefamily]

Keeping within the community guidelines and keeping it for members is what we’re grappling with a bit. I love the idea of doing this within our community but only if it’s respectful to the established norm within geocaching. Maybe we would just want to start to stash patches in random caches that we like and then let people know that *if* they are local caches, they might want to be on the lookout for some free swag, and give no specifics other than that they are around our locale.

Edited February 16, 2019 by thebarriefamily

[+K13]

The cynic in me offers this:  if "Greedy Cacher" is local to you, and follows your company on faceplant, they can amass quite a collection of the items you are hoping will find their way to lots of cachers.

 

Another thing to consider is that the typical geocacher will not return to a cache after finding it, so when you announce that your items are in random caches, many people will never see them, because they have already found that cache.

 

Your idea of placing your own cache seems to me like a great way to accomplish your goal.

 

Good luck

[+humboldt flier]

Wellllllll ... if you are going to use an ammo can ANCHOR IT DOWN.  We have skulkers here in NW Calif. who troll the site for ammo cans ....... If you are lucky your ammo can will be replaced with an inferior product.  Most time the contents are scattered about the area

[+hzoi]

There is no limitation on swag.  The rules allow you to leave business cards, patches, whatever you like, either in your caches or in others.

 

The limit is on commercial caches.  You could place one on your business property, but it couldn't be a form of advertising* or require any interaction with employees.

 

The best thing to do in any situation where you are concerned about whether your cache passes muster under the guidelines  is to communicate with your local reviewer and run your idea(s) by them - then you will have a clear picture of your left and right limits.

 

*Well, it could be, if you partner with Groundspeak.  After all, the A.P.E. caches were a commercial tie-in, though one that's unlikely to be repeated.

[+Goldenwattle]

4 minutes ago, hzoi said:

business cards

I remember visiting a cache in a village and it was full of business cards of local businesses. I was amused, because this supposedly secret hidden cache, it appeared the locals knew exactly where it was hidden.

[+fuzziebear3]

Similar, but different -- I have found several park managed caches in state parks, and they were stocked with park swag as well. 

 

If you can place the cache and work within the 'commercial cache' guideline, I think you can stock it with swag as you like.