After just over 7 months of launching our sister blog, Promo Watch, we thought it would be useful to take a snapshot of the current content of (largely) on-pack promotions. These will undoubtedly be more useful over time when we can compare results with previous years and explore trends in activity. Still, we've got to start somewhere so this is the state of play of UK Sales Promotion as we see it.
Unsurprisingly Prize Draws can form an overall majority due to their many benefits:
- Easy to set up - especially online
- Budgets controlled - there are definite pre-defined winners
- Good for data capture
- Scope for creativity and theme
On the negative side, they can be more expensive - you are after all committed to giving away the advertised prizes. In isolation they can be less engaging than other more demanding promotions. The ease of entry normally means that participation is high.
Our favourite Prize Draw is the PG Tips - Win a tea-tasting trip to Kenya. Simple, on-message and plenty of runner up prizes.
There were several ways of cutting the cake here - as many promotions featured more than one entry method. We included all entry methods as part of the total count so the chart represents the share of all available entry methods for all the promotions. Analysed another way would only have skewed results even more in favour of online as all bar about 2 promotions had an online entry route.
No big surprise with the obvious benefits of the web, except that there is a danger that the whole 'enter codes to get X' journey could become a little tired.
Our favourite promotion for it's use of the internet has to be Doritos King of Ads. Embracing social media and blurring the boundaries between tv advertising and the YouTube world of the online generation.
While we're on the subject of entry methods, the most visited campaign on PromoWatch (for all the wrong reasons) has been the Felix Golden Pack promotion. There are hundreds of comments from dissatisfied consumers who can't get the website to accept the codes and they have used this forum as a punchbag for their obvious frustration. The path of online promotions does not always run smooth, but when things go wrong sitting back and not offering any recompense, brand gestures or viable solutions can only do more harm.
Here we looked at what was actually the hook for getting the consumer to do what you want. In these austere times money has featured strongly and it will be interesting to see whether it loses share in future timeframes. Premiums is a cover-all term for any widget, gizmo, branded whatnot or desirable bit of kit you can imagine so, it will inevitably be the biggest group. Taken as a whole Travel, Experiences and 3rd party offers all point to Leisure, Leisure, Leisure with 44% of the headline offerings.
Our favourite Premium offering would have to be Peperami's Win a Fanimal. Typically irreverent, enriching the brand equity of their 'bit of an animal' Peperami character and managing to introduce a humourous association with the World Cup into the bargain. Clever!
Very interested to see the SMS% for entry method, just wondering if you have the full years worth of stats to see if there's been an increase
Posted by: Dawn | January 27, 2011 at 13:38