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.