United or City. Tory or Labour. Coke or Pepsi. Which are you? We humans seem to like a simple choice - the 'Either/Or' theory, I call it, and many years of observation has convinced me it's generally right. Third place just isn't sustainable. Sometimes in marketing we overcomplicate what is actually a simple business. And so, although some sectors appear to be littered with brands, each individual purchase usually boils down to the same binary decision: cheaper or better. I was reminded of these two fundamental positions when I read that Waitrose and Aldi had topped last week's Which? supermarket satisfaction survey. It also serves to highlight why sales promotion can be so influential in closing the sale: as catalyst for the tipping point, it only takes a small slice of discount here, or a pinch of added value there, to have the consumer coming down on your side of the fence.
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I've often been asked whether upscale consumers respond to offers. This has puzzled me. I feel it's a bit like questioning whether they feel fear, or hope or pleasure. Of course, I wasn't surprised to see Asda's coupons plastered across the tabloids this week - millions of green fivers and tenners, their version of quantitative easing, perhaps. But neither was I surprised to find the very same coupons occupying a whacking great full page of the Daily Telegraph. Okay - certainly the ad at first glance looked a little out of place, and you might wonder about geographical indices (although this was the Scottish edition) (yes, they have one!) - but turn a few more pages and what do you find? Well, here's a sample of headlines: 'Five Years of Servicing for £1 a week' (BMW). 'Dinner for two for £10.' (The DT itself.) 'Free Upgrade from Business to First' (BA). 'Fly to the slopes from £9.99' (Ryanair). 'Wine half price' (Morrisons). 'Save £1000 per couple'. (P&O) 'Save 40% at Sandals'.... and another dozen or so sale offers. In fact, while pleasantly urbane brand-building ads are a scarce commodity, brash daisy-rooted offers appear to be de rigueur. Promotions need acknowledge no caste system.
Yesterday I was sauntering disoriented in the vicinity of Sauchiehall Street when a promotion in a shop window caught my eye: "Join George on his Jet" (or words to that effect). I realised I was looking into a branch of GIVe, George Davies' new fashion venture. When I hear him over the airwaves, he seems to talk a lot of sense, and clearly knows the market like few others, but I did have misgivings about the offer. I gather the market here is female - aged 30 and over - and in that context the proposition did sound rather... well... like a proposition. You get to win a shopping trip in Florence with George (on his jet), plus an overnight stay and dinner with George in his favourite Italian restaurant. Oh - and you get to bring a gooseberry... er, friend. Now - okay - I can think of a few people who might be queueing up to win this 'experience', but if you care to visit the promotional website you'll see a pic of a brooding George looking every bit like an elder of the dark fraternity in Being Human. It's a good rational offer, but I do wonder have they thought about the touchy-feely side of things? Digging deeper, the mechanic is an interesting one... the winner will actually be the person who shops more of their mates than anyone else. It's an admirable sentiment, but unfortunately not one that will turn on the majority of potential respondents. The compers, meanwhile, will be frantically inventing friends from all over the world... perhaps even from Florence. Ciao!
Every so often a product appears that you just know will strike gold. I think the last one was the mobile phone, brick at the time or not. It really was obvious that it was going to transform the way you operated. Now I reckon paper has at last met its match: cue the Que, the magazine-sized plastic book-reader that weighs a third of a MacBook Air, effectively needs no cables (the battery apparently lasts for days), and will deliver your daily papers and everything else you want to peruse (work or leisure) at a scale that you actually want to look at.... bringing an end to all this microscopic smartphone nonsense. Not cheap, of course, but as a one-to-one sales presentation or interview tool it seems the perfect gismo. And, once the price comes down, surely it won't be long before we've all got one in our bags?
Call me old fashioned, but I’m with the Luddites when it comes to doing away with the bookies’ time-honoured method of stating the odds. Who needs “2.5” when trusty “6/4” tells you everything you need to know? But the racing industry (or part of it, at least) thinks that a switch of steeds to decimalisation will halt the halt the flow of punters that are seemingly bolting from the market. “The only people who will object to it are [those] who don’t want to be part of the future.” Hmm. Wrong stable door, if you ask me. What this approach neglects entirely are the humans at the business ends of the transaction. We don’t like numbers. Our brains work a different way. We’ve evolved to picture herds of wildebeest scattering before our creeping presence, sharpened flints poised to pick out the most promising dinner. Traditional SPs conjure such images in our minds: 100/1… save your arrows… 8/1…. it’s still a long shot… 11/10… fire! A mouth-watering prospect. Interestingly enough, it’s the on-course bookies who are railing against the proposed change. My maxim: listen to the salesman.
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Dear Santa... I wanna complain. Okay - so it's the whitest Yuletide we've had for a while, even up here in snowy Scotland, where Edinburgh's seven hills and seventy-seven golf courses currently resemble Courchevel during the school holiday week - but there's a seasonal trend I'm not entirely happy about. I think it's vaguely connected to this global warming business (or did I omit the word 'monkey' just there?)... where have all the Christmas cards gone? I'm thinking too many people are jumping on the bandwagon... let's save a few miserly bob by sending out an e-card instead. Now I can understand the innocents falling for the spin, and thinking this could rescue the planet, but hard-nosed marketers... hmm? I've already mentioned that more landfill equals less CO2 floating about... now let's turn to emails as proxy for the real thing... why would you think someone might read them? Appreciate them? Cherish them? Crescendo impending, people in our line sit twitching at their desks watching the snow pile up outside, itching to hit the nearest traffic jam. Emptying the in-box, swatting new arrivals like arctic mosquitos is de rigeur. This is what happens to e-junk at the best of times. Right now it's the worst of times.
This time of year usually finds me systematically and surreptitiously stripping sales promotions from the spirits fixture (aargh! ample alliteration, apologies) - and I'm endlessly fascinated by the perennial battle between the bolt-ons and the branded promos. An excellent case in point, standing side by side I spotted Bushmills and Jameson. Both sporting superbly executed on-pack collars, the former offers a free limited edition commemorative hardback, celebrating 400 years of Bushmills heritage ('worth' £17.99), while the latter entreats with 4 free cinema tickets. Who will win? The brand or the bolt-on? Well... I suppose the answer depends on how victory is measured. If it's by immediate impact on rate of sale then Jameson has it by a country mile. But if long-term brand building is anywhere in the equation you might think otherwise. Perhaps a case of marathon versus sprint. Either strategy has its merits. As an aside, if you get chance to view these campaigns in vivo - take a closer look, bearing in mind my mantra that 'ease' is the single biggest factor in determining response - there are some extraordinary flaws in the mechanics of each.
I guess the SP agencies will be forming a disorderly line to be first to use a trip on Virgin Galactic's imaginatively named SpaceShipTwo as a consumer prize - it certainly scoops the old chestnuts of car, cash and exotic holiday into a cocked hat, if I may mix a few metaphors. I've never been a great fan of bolt-on promotions, they've always struck me as a lazyboy's solution when one might reinforce the brand with the merest tweak of the creative neurons. Still, news is news, new is new, and only Virgin have used it so far for their frequent flyer programme. Nevertheless, it would be pleasing to see a jaunt into outer space employed by a name that makes some sense. Obviously Mars rockets to mind - with a stable that includes Planets, Orbit and Starburst they could get a whole range campaign for the price of one. Standard Fireworks, maybe? Or - my current favourite - WeightWatchers.... feel what it would actually be like if you only gave up all those pastries. (Pie in the sky?). No matter. Whoever gets there, just imagine... if you won, you could tell your mates you were over the moon... and you really were.
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I love it when a new word sweeps into the language, and one, like an irresistible tide, has recently infiltrated every nook and cranny of the lingua franca. Of course, the techie guys will tell you it's been their common currency for many a year, but isn't it fun when some such obscure expression escapes to find itself upon lips the length and breadth of the land. In less than twelve months the app has - I predict - even replaced M&S socks as the Christmas gift of choice from Gran. What an achievement! (But when, I wonder - as an aside - did that quaint old phrase 'stamping ground' become usurped by its ugly bovver-booted cousin 'stomping ground'? And who started it?!)
I applaud the Gov's latest wheeze for a national forest to absorb all that nasty greenhouse gas, but isn't there a short-cut available here? STOP RECYCLING. Don't know much bi-ol-o-gy, but if I recall rightly, paper and card is mostly carbon. (Plants make cellulose from CO2, we make paper from plants.) Isn't the best thing, then, to let the fast-growing conifers and eucalypti do their stuff, chop 'em down, mince 'em up, roll 'em out... then print off our mailshots, newspapers, memos and fantastic quarterly plans... and then bury the lot! Meanwhile we plant more trees in the spaces left behind. The more paper we inter, the less CO2 there is floating around causing global warming (hah!). What a great contribution the marketing business can make to saving the planet! (And in millions of years time... it might even get squished back into oil!)
In Scotland, mince pies are not what they might seem. In fact if you dig about in the chiller section in Tesco, you'll find them labelled superfluously (north of the border) as 'Scotch Pies'. (I can't imagine the good Celtic folk of Cornwall ask for anything but a plain old 'pasty'.) Thus hang about in a local baker's for any length of time and the same principle applies - ask for a mince pie and they'll know exactly what you mean. I was therefore amused to hear from my pal Ken that, feeling a bit peckish, he'd popped into the nearest Gregg's and requested one of the same, only to be met with the perplexing and somewhat irate retort "Is that a mince pie or a mince pie you're wanting?" (And apparently no indication by nod, wink or well-aimed glance at any differentiating pile of comestibles.) Calling the implacable assistant's bluff, he swiftly replied "I've changed my mind - I'll have a bridie", but nevertheless was sufficiently intrigued by the exchange to relay its details onward. Okay, so Christmas approaches and no doubt festive fare is now on offer, but I did wonder how a foreign visitor would have coped with the linguistic conundrum. Oh... on the way down the street, trying to eat surreptitiously, Ken also mentioned he got a poke in the eye... but that's another one for local consumption only!
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Roughly one-third of people who intend to respond to an offer actually do it. This thought came to mind as I was waiting patiently for my string of coupons to print at the Sainsbury's checkout. A much-vaunted megabucks initiative........ but why, I wondered, have they left it until I've finished my shopping before hitting me with the offers? I'm running late as it is (the woman in front got a re-scan), surely they don't expect me to go back around the store? Okay - so that's being a little ingenuous..... but from now on their investment is at the mercy of my (dis)organisation. That spells trouble. Apparently they're going to issue a billion coupons. That'll be the best part of a billion never making it back to the store. Something seems amiss here. Sure, I know there was a time when they had coupon machines in the foyer, and everyone just walked past them, but there must be a better way to influence repeat purchase without erecting so many barriers to response - especially when they've got the consumer there in the first place, ready and eager to buy. And all that coupon confetti in the age of the electron! Why not just concentrate on Reward card holders (fast-trackers, even), and physically intercept a willing portion of them on arrival? A quick scan of the plastic, and bingo - they'd capture just as many participants, no paper wasted, and potentially no admin needed. Easy.
I'm constantly entertained by the stuff kids come out with. Only at the start of this term, two of ours independently came home to announce that their respective form mistresses were Miss Cane and Miss Smacky (quite close, in fact: Miss Kane and Miss Mackie... an ominous-sounding pair merely lacking the Trunchbull as head). So I'm always on the alert for lateral interpretations of sounds that we've long ago lost the childlike talent to hear. Another example was a question I got recently... "Dad - what's a shallawander?" (Surely you remember? Goosey goosey gander, with a shallawander.) It's great. And so easy to overlook that vast army of listeners out there who hear something completely different to what we think we're telling them. I suppose on the plus side, they often imagine something far more vivid than we could ever portray: I recall admonishing: "Don't drop crumbs, it attracts vermin".... to receive the reply "Who's Vermin?" I can just picture him. Wonderful.
When you think about it, the average bottle of spirits is half full. At least, I'm sure this mathematical rule-of-thumb must apply to stock on display in the on-trade. I've often been struck, therefore (in Scottish bars especially, where a plethora of ancient malts stand to tired attention) by the amount of air on display. Backlit bottles look great when they're full - golden, honeyed, alluring - but half empty or worse... the effect is the opposite. I was shocked, therefore, to discover a brand that I've come to rely upon for its distinctive dark packaging - always consistent, identifiable even at a slurred distance, determinedly defying far-flung bartenders' efforts to mispronounce it and sell you the local hooch - has moved into clear glass. The product in question is Drambuie - currently proudly advertising its new bottle via a neck-collar in supermarkets. The stuff inside looks as appetising as ever... but if this same packaging is heading for the on-trade... I fear for its appeal as nitrogen gradually takes precedence.
When is a promotion not a promotion? The answer - it looks to me - is when it's a BOGOF in Tesco. Widely reported in the past 24 hours, Tesco is to replace its perishable BOGOFs with BOGOLs : buy one, get one later (apparently you get a coupon so you can 'GOF' when it suits you). The idea, it seems, is a response to criticism that BOGOFs encourage waste: people stock up on stuff they can't eat in time, and end up binning it. Fine in principle... but one small flaw. Why would a supplier pay a small fortune to a retailer to run a promotion that doesn't sell any extra stock? Isn't the idea that people DO stock up... that they DO buy more than usual... that they actually change their habits for a short while, perhaps even getting to like the product in the process? Why fund just a normal purchase (next week, next month) when it doesn't do anything for sales, penetration, loyalty... or whatever? Mind bogoling (sic). And another thing - there's one fact we all know for sure about coupon redemption... it's never 100%... much, much less, indeed. Some interesting implications there, I reckon!
Ian Moore
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