A Plethora of Perplexing Promotions

I spend a good deal of my time penning ideas for a major tourist authority.  As such, provenance is patently an imperative plank of communication.  It baffles me, therefore, when I see a brand bearing strong origins apparently intentionally confusing the consumer over what ought to be one of its strongest attributes. 

At this time of the year there is a seasonal bloom of on-pack promotions in the wines and spirits section of the store.  There are few market sectors where provenance matters more, so you would imagine that we'd be bombarded with a dazzling array of brand-building offers... not quite what I discovered this weekend, as I battled with one of our two overloaded dodgems-carts around the local Sainsbury's.

Actually the first campaign to catch my eye was a cracker - a jazzily boxed edition of Angostura Bitters announcing the chance to win a trip to Trinidad and Tobago.  I almost bought it, even though we have at least a couple in stock (and they seem to last for years!).  Where does Angostura come from? Answer: Port of Spain... Trinidad, of course.  Excellent.

My faith in promotional marketing was further enhanced by the next one I found: 'Win a Vespa' with Disaronno Amaretto.  How Italian is that?  Perfetto. (And no knickers in a twist over the imaginary connection between drink-driving and a scooter as a prize.)

Moving swiftly on, things went suddenly downhill when a collar on Black Tower caught my eye.  Now, I assume this is a German wine, and - actually - they turn out a pretty reliable product if it's to your taste.  Well you'd think the offer would support the brand's origins - surely de rigeur for most wines.  Well... unless Limassol has a doppelganger with palms and a blue seascape somewhere up on the Baltic coast...?  Last time I looked it was still in Cyprus.  Confused?  Me too.

Next I discovered that Bombay Sapphire is offering a special deal on weekends in Malmaison hotels - excluding the London branch, which is disappointingly often the case with this kind of promo.  While I fully understand the argument about making an offer appeal to a certain target audience, I am nevertheless bemused when a brand with such potentially strong credentials misses a simple opportunity to promote them - and instead supports a relatively unconnected hotel chain.  Moreover, I can tell you from experience that these deals get relatively insignificant uptake (which suggests they don't really work).  Call me thick, but why not a striking message to win a trip to Bombay, to stay in the same hotel as Queen Victoria (whose image graces the bottle's label)?  A bit of simple on-pack branding to reinforce the brand's name and identity.

Finally... and by now we'd shuffled from wines and spirits back to preserves, having forgotten ginger-something-or-other (and reserve supplies of Nutella)... I found a real beaut of a promotion on Capilano Australian honey.  Yes - you guessed - Win a trip to New York!  Okay - so they're co-promoting with the Bee Movie... but you'd think someone would have spotted the bloomer.  Remarkably, the front pack flash actually offers a £4,000 cash alternative, perhaps a Freudian admission that no one anyway would want to visit the Big Apple (at least they didn't cause further confusion by calling it that).  Ah well - out of sympathy I bought the honey and it's going down well with the kids. 

SHOCK HORROR – ADVERTISING WORKS!

Children see some 10,000 TV ads a year and recognise 400 brands by age 10, Children's Secretary Ed Balls says, in announcing a government inquiry into the possible harmful effects of advertising upon children.  I confidently predict the study will show that, among the effects of advertising upon children, some can be considered harmful.  The money (our money) can be saved and put to a better purpose just by Mr Balls reading this intro.

In May this year we were met with the bizarre scenario of the German Advertising Association (seconded by their UK counterparts, no less) making the case to Brussels that, actually, ads to kids don't really work very well at all - this in knee-jerk response to the European Parliament's Directive that member states must clamp down upon the advertising of HFSS products (high in fat, salt or sugar).  The words turkeys, voting and Christmas spring seasonally to mind.

The idea that advertising may not work is as old as it is ridiculous.  Sure... lots of advertising doesn't work very WELL, and some advertising is so bad that it unsells the product... but most ads and marketing communications are pretty darned effective when evaluated on a pound-spent-per-person basis.  I see it working every day - but if my eyes are deceiving me, then there's one hell of a lot of CEOs out there who need the sack for frittering away their shareholders' funds on frivolous foreign shoots and costly campaigns.

Flying by flapping your arms doesn't cut the mustard, and in consequence we don't have a worldwide industry populated by hundreds of thousands of people dedicated to its promulgation.  Marketing communications, on the other hand... now, isn't the clue in the scale and all-pervasiveness of this business?

I find it extraordinary that the same people who can't wait to have themselves photographed in front of the latest (election) campaign poster, scratch their heads perplexedly when it comes to something as simple as advertising to children.  Why do they think the ads are scheduled at times when kids will be watching?  Have they any kids of their own?... have they not noticed that kids' brains are many times more receptive and perceptive than the old overloaded congealed lumps of porridge swilling around in their own skulls?  A Liverpool University study on food advertising recently demonstrated that obese and overweight children increase their food intake by more than 100% after watching food ads on TV.  (There should be no surprise here, although it’s an interesting statistic.)

Our kids swim in a swirling sea of sales messages.  Mr Balls’ figure of 10,000 ads per annum is probably grossly conservative (and why not?) – as far back as 1997 studies were coming up with an upper estimate of 40,000.  And, to stretch the metaphor, that’s arguably just the tip of an inverted iceberg of communications emanating from friends, family, social circles and media.  Children are programmed from conception to absorb and learn from the stimuli they receive; admittedly less so to differentiate between what society deems are the positive and negative effects.  But to spend taxpayers’ money to prove this point seems… well… pointless.

STELLA 74p A PINT? AND WE DRINK TOO MUCH?

‘Drinks suppliers’ pleas fall on deaf ears as stores crank up promotions.’  This dust-encrusted Christmas-decoration-of-a-headline from the current issue of The Grocer must first have been penned some 20 years ago, and carefully mothballed after a brief appearance each subsequent Festive Season.  Well, it saves a bit of work for the hacks… in fact I’m sure it’s the same article as I read last year…

Okay, the intervening 12 months have probably seen more column inches than ever devoted to the perils of alcohol consumption, our secret suburban wine-slurping epidemic, and proposed sanctions and taxes to drive this blight from Blighty’s shores, but come December and – plus c’est la meme chose – the shops are bursting with booze.  Gondola ends tower with pallets creaking under the six-packs, twelve-packs and twenty-four-packs.  Placards plaster the fixtures with a dizzying array of discounts.  And shoppers oblige by the trolley-load, their cars’ shock-absorbers groaning a tell-tale and perhaps final farewell from the store parking lot.

It rather recalls the Fast Show: ‘Me, the 13th Duke of Wybourne, here?  In a student nurses’ halls of residence?  With my reputation?’  When Stella and its like are so cheap that even shoplifters have given up trying to steal it, why is anybody surprised that we live in Binge Britain?  In one of my ‘NEWAIDA’ lectures I talk about the importance of giving your customer permission to say yes when faced by the fear of impending cognitive dissonance (apologies for the jargon).  Well, 74p a pint – or let’s say about one fifth of the regular supping price – equals permission big style.

When the big retailers’ shares are probably propping up most pension funds, who wouldn’t want them to get their slice of the Christmas cake?  The latest Guinness trade ad boasts how it will boost category value.  They’re the key words that seem to appeal to every retail buyer.  If I’m right they translate to getting consumers to spend more money on booze.  With what seems like half the nation’s production, distribution, retail and leisure infrastructure dedicated to this end – and quite obviously so – it perplexes me that there’s any cause for complaint… other than the suggestion that ‘the industry’s’ exhortations in the direction of responsible drinking are somewhat disingenuous.