Loyalty v sales promotion?

The essence of a great synergistic brand partner led loyalty scheme is encapsulated by the award winning Times Culture+ program.  The complete opposite of trying to buy readers by bribing them with cover price discounts and a myriad of completely random free items ranging from health sticks to bottles of water, orange juice to free chocolate bars is the Daily and Sunday Express.

One, The Times and The Sunday Times, is rewarding readers and subscribers over a long period of time by looking at their passions and saving them money on them while also offering them money can’t buy screenings and events. They are also marrying this with rich content and editorial that matches their passions too.

The other, The Daily and Sunday Express, is simply thrashing around desperately looking for anything to stand out on the front page and catch some hapless passerby and bribe him to buy the paper.  There is absolutely no link with editorial or any content in the paper itself. The problem with the latter is that there is no loyalty and no incentive for that reader to come back and therefore the trick (and it is a trick) has to be performed again and again.

The benefit of the former is that it builds up positive word of mouth, readers expect and know that they will be getting rewards based on their passions every week which is matched by editorial they can enjoy and this in turn encourages their loyalty and continued purchase. 

This kind of quality brand partner led loyalty scheme wins every time when the competition is this kind of unfocused sales promotion. One is cost effective, the other is a waste of effort.

McCoys non-branded promotion is everything that is wrong with FMCG SP

McCoy’s has recently launched a “win gadgets” competition on-pack – the title says it all – its lazy. They are offering the chance to win ipods and ps3’s but you will notice the complete lack of brand endorsement from either Apple or Sony.

This sums up everything that is wrong with sales promotion on many FMCG brands. The young males that they are targeting are extremely brand literate. They would much prefer a brand endorsed promotion rather than this unbranded, “Hello John I’ve got an ipod for you guv’nor” non-apple endorsed source. Anyone can do that and everyone does, every corner shop, every financial brand, every brand or business without any imagination at all gives away an unbranded ipod totally unendorsed by Apple. So why are McCoys?

Surely McCoy’s are bigger enough and smart enough not to follow what everyone else is doing? Surely they should actually work at a brand partnership and actually give away branded items with brand endorsement from a brand their target audience respect and work with the brand to make the promotion so much bigger and better all round?

This looks tacky and way beneath McCoys customer’s brand expectation.

Sunday Times Insight team, or Withnail and I on DVD?

If you were in senior management in a newspaper, would you invest your ten million pounds in investigative journalism, or in promotions?  More specifically, would you buy, produce and market a 25 year old film at the expense of newshounds?

Sunday Times Editor John Witherow would insist that news and investigate news sells newspapers. The Sunday Times Marketing Director, with one eye on year-on-year ABC comparisons, would point to the need for a front page promotion.  The answer last weekend was a Free Withnail and I DVD that has run before at least once (as most free DVDs have these days!) and would only generate a modest uplift, but it’s enough to get over the year on year comparison.  Promotions are the lifeblood of the newspaper business, as they sell newspapers.
 
When does news sell newspapers?  Wars sell, major football sells, Murray winning Wimbledon sells, MP expenses sells – but how often can real news sell real numbers of newspapers? 

Like it or loathe it,  promotions still sell newspapers.  Journalists break news every minute on line, it takes something old-school, or truly revelationary to sell piles of print.  The trick is to identify those who come in on the back of the promotion, and lock them in to the longer term.  But that’s a different story……

Where’s the imagination in newspaper promotions gone?

The last 3-4 weeks has demonstrated that news sells newspaper more than promotions, price cuts sells newspapers more than promotions, in fact putting a pretty blonde on the front page of any newspaper sells newspapers more than promotions....so why? Where have all the innovation newspaper promotions gone?

Since The Daily Telegraph began its assault on MP’s expenses their sales have increased every day they have run the story (which is to say every day!) they are up 2.3% month on month, with their sister title The Sunday Telegraph, who have also been running the expenses story up 5% month on month. This has had a more sustained affect on their sales than any recent promotions that they have run. Also this is a very positive way of bringing new or lapsed readers in as these readers may enjoy the editorial and stay as they have come in for the editorial. This contrasts with promotions where people come in for the free gift and not the editorial and don't stay. The Holy Grail of course being a link between the two.  To contrast this the Mail on Sunday is down 8% year on year as it was behind the game with the expenses story and had no ground breaking promotions, it fact it appears to have halted all headline grabbing promotions as it wrestles with falling advertising revenue.

The Star’s sales have shot up since they have used the one trusted mechanic that always works for every paper, price cuts. So much so that the Sun has now responded with its own price cut leaving the poor Mirror reader to pay a premium for its paper as it has no other financial clout to back its own price cut.

However the Mirror have run one of the best long term, on brand, on target and effective promotions in recent months with their imaginative Lego promotion. It took months to set up and they gave away different Lego toys each week promoting the giveaway very visually and effectively on their front pages and in various marketing communications. However this was a rare gem of imaginative thinking from newspaper marketing teams. The Time’s Culture+ being another and we’ll come on to that in the next blog....

Just to give you an idea of the context of the lack of imaginative promotions this is the summary from the weekend:

The Daily Star ran a theme park promotion which you get anywhere just by surfing the web, they were also offering a free bet which has the usual strings and again you get better on line, The Express ran the same theme park promotion and continued their quest to increase the world’s carbon emissions by continually giving away bottles of water through selected supermarkets, the Mirror have a free bet, The Times had nothing, the Independent had a competition and 20% off at Abel & Cole, The Sun had a free Walking with Dinosaurs DVD which has been giving away several times before, through Tesco, The Telegraph had 2:1 at the National Trust, The Mail had nothing for a change and The Guardian had a free walks guide, The Sunday Express have Free Maltesers, Observer has free walking guide, The Sunday Telegraph 2 war themed film DVDs, The Mail on Sunday have a bizarre Union Jack bag for £10, The Mirror nothing, The Sunday Star had Terminator behind the scenes DVD and The NOTW £5 off JJB Sports.

Where’s the cutting edge promotion that would make someone pick up a newspaper they haven’t tried or persuaded a rival reader to switch or excited someone to buy a newspaper when they may otherwise not do so? News has done that, as has price points, now there is a great opportunity for promotions to do the same.