Feature: Keeping promotions out of trouble

David Armstrong, managing director of Aztec Marketing Solutions, advises promoters not to bury their heads in the sand – for the sake of brand owners and the industry

Consumer complaints relating to a client’s promotion must represent the worst nightmare situation for all parties concerned: client, agency, designated organiser and of course most importantly the customer. With the depth of experience that is available to the UK sales promotions industry, why then do we still see promotions failing to deliver the goods to the end user?

Have we not learned from the industry’s most notorious of case studies, Hoover Free Flights? “Stop,” I hear you say, “Not that old promotional relic!” But, if corporate clients and agencies learned from previous mistakes, maybe this old icon would not need to be dusted off and brought out into the public domain again.

There is an old adage, which says, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.” We are now in 2008, over a decade since that infamous promotion, and still we see the same old mistakes being made.

There is truly nothing wrong about playing safe: we spend our life trying to install that concept into the minds of our children and with good reason. Maybe now it is our turn to say, “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being careful”. It won’t detract from the core objective of the campaign, or weaken the promotional concept to the consumer, or be seen as an over-zealous action taken by both client and agency in delivering a powerful and creative campaign to the consumer.

But taking care, being prudent, carrying out a promotional form of due diligence will permit both you and your client to launch a successful promotional campaign without having to endure sleepless nights, be exposed on Watchdog, or have to firefight a stream of justifiable consumer complaints about non-delivery of the promotional offer.

So let us invest some valuable time to protect our industry in the future by giving due deliberation to the concept of creating safe promotional campaigns, taking care in their management and delivery, avoiding the obvious and sometimes less obvious pitfalls, which exist under the descriptive guise of Mr Murphy’s promotional minefields.

How can we use our best endeavours to try to avoid promotional Armageddon? What action can we take to protect the integrity of our client, indeed our own agency’s reputation? Let’s face it: an appearance on Watchdog does nobody any favours, least of all the client, and giving them cause to appear on the programme will hardly encourage your client to ever trust your “judgement” again.

We can never provide a cast-iron guarantee of total success, but we can provide sensible guidelines to avoid failure, particularly failure to deliver to the promotional offer and the excellent delivery of that promotional offer to the consumer.

So here are 13 measures we would recommend to any client to ensure that you deliver a high-profile powerful, creative and most importantly safe promotional activity based on third-party relationship marketing partnerships:

• Write your promotional brief with as much detail as possible, in particular including numbers of opportunities and any historical redemption figures.
• Ensure adequate promotional funding exists: remember you get what you pay for in life!
• Select your agency pitch list. Selected agencies should have a proven track record in the delivery of high-profile consumer promotions.
• Having selected your promotions agency, ensure client and supplier references are provided.
• Request previous client case studies including redemption rates. They can always be obtained. Redemption data should also be provided throughout the promotion and at the end of the promotional validity period.
• Instruct agencies to provide public disclosure of all sub-contracted third parties involved.
• Ask for promotion-specific contracts with all contracted third-party suppliers.
• Insist on co-writing the bespoke contracts with all suppliers.
• Require written confirmation that all redemption costs are borne out of third-party relationship marketing agreements with suppliers. Therefore, 100 per cent redemption costs are picked up by the contracted suppliers.
• If there is a cost implication per redemption, ensure that adequate over-redemption insurance cover is provided (based on documented previous case studies).
• Ask if your chosen agency has had any history regarding previous cases where they may have appeared on a consumer “watchdog” programme, or been held in breach of ISP/Advertising Standards Authority guidelines. If so ensure that you speak to the client involved to gain a “judgement or opinion” regarding the performance of your chosen agency.
• Where applicable, request proof of endorsement by all relevant governing bodies, associations etc.

If any of the above cannot be supplied by your chosen agency, think again.

Finally, keep asking questions, play safe and look after the client’s interests at all times. Above all, do not bury your head in the sand exposing an unprotected rear, as there is always an enterprising consumer programme just waiting to deliver a match-winning conversion kick.

Aztec Marketing Solutions has just celebrated its first decade as a leading agency specialising in sports, tourism and leisure sales promotional activity.