If you’ve ever wanted to hurl after being ambushed by one American Chopper promo too many on the seriously misleading Discovery Channel, relief is at hand. Definitely at hand. On March 25, Discovery International airs Birth of a Racer, chronicling the Portland, Oregon based Team Motoczysz’ shoestring and a prayer entry into the extremely high altitude world of GP racing.
Team Rally Pan Am issued a press release that, apart from regret, wondered if perhaps the Portugal and Morroco legs couldn’t have been salvaged before cancelling outright the entire event. The privateers from San Fran had hoped this would be their breakout year with Jonah Street again seeking a podium.
“It’s unfortunate that so many people’s livelihoods are affected by a few people’s attitudes. I was looking forward to the race this year, and my whole team and I are extremely disappointed. This would
have been a great race for us,” said Street.
Charlie Rauseo, team manager, said that “It is a huge blow to our team. This is the race we look forward to and spend all year preparing for.”
“After having spent many months training and preparing for this rally, the team regrets not having the chance to prove itself on this international stage. It is unfortunate that the race was not run at least in Morocco so that sponsors could receive some of the exposure from this great race, and supporters and fans could cheer on Jonah as he raced for the win.”
Sweet! Valvoline’s summer promotion offering a pair of Mechanix gloves – MSRP $23.95 – in exchange for 6 proofs of purchase was a thumbs-up winner in the create a new customer sweepstakes. Valvoline’s always been my oil of choice and this just cemented the deal. I stripped off the plastic rings from the 60-weight already on my shelves and 4-6 weeks later the gloves were on my workbench.
This marketing promotion worked well on a number of levels. Actual retail value of the premium was easily compared by visiting any chain store and checking out the pricing. The gloves themselves have a known brand cache. The fact that the product was practical as well completed the reward expectations loop, justifying the effort to collect, fill out, insert and mail the qualifying bits and pieces. And this promo created a fair amount of blog and forum buzz, which never hurts.
Not every marketer can devote the resources needed to lay out a promo like this one. (Adobe just ran a buy two get an iPod shuffle to hype their stock art biz. I didn’t need another iPod but couldn’t resist taking the bait.) But if the audience is big enough, the rewards on both sides of the mailbox can be considerable.
First some background. One of the essential Marketing Customer Commandments that’s emerged in the era of the internet has been a total focus on customer retention. My recent experiences with vendors ranging from Valvoline motor oil to Garden of Eatin’s line of organic chips convinces me that it’s not just a throwaway line. But then there are retailers like Circuit City, and this goes to the reason why Best Buy is clobbering The Other Big Red Box.
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I just posted a short how-to here on how to get the most out of your publicity efforts. I only list three checklist tips, but they describe the most common mistakes and how to easily correct them.
Why bother? When you consider the space rates for most of the publications reaching dealers and consumers hands every month, even a modest investment in preparation could yield pretty impressive savings – not to mention the impact on your brand.
It’s like – like getting free gas at the pump, just for checking your tire pressure.