In starting to write this paper, I had some doubts: "Should I really talk to an Assembly of Researchers and Professionals of the Promotion about distribution checks, consumer sales and other basic items?" A short review of a few dozens of promotion sales confirms that basic principles and basic facts are either not known or not taken into consideration by leading manufacturers in running promotions. This is the reason why I decided to start from the very beginning.
This paper reviews Mini-Test Market experience in the field of consumer promotions testing and concludes that pre-evaluation of alternative promotions or indeed of any alternative marketing action needs a valid test method which in turn offers negligible risk.
This paper summarises a market research programme that was carried out before, during and after the Martini 'Wonderful World' promotion in England in the spring of 1975. In our experience it is all too often true that promotional material is unrelated to the theme of the advertising for the brand. Given the importance of the image projected in the advertising to Martini it was vital that any promotion should work with rather than independent of this image. A small scale study was therefore carried out to demonstrate the appropriateness of the promotion to Martini. This helped in the decision to carry out the promotion. During the promotion it was found possible to use the merchandising force as a means of conducting a census on all outlets visited. A special form was designed for this purpose. This census proved of considerable value despite its theoretical limitations. After the promotion was over an omnibus survey a s used to establish awareness of the promotion. This revealed that too much emphasis had been placed on the theme aspect of the promotion and not enough on the 'scheme' aspect. In conclusion it was agreed that the use of market research had been valuable as a diagnostic tool. No attempt was made to use it predictively since it was felt that this was beyond the present scope of promotional research.
The purpose and the nature of this memo is a very practical one: it is to show how we tried to make better decisions on promotions by reinforcing the classic judgemental approach with an inter-subjective research oriented approach (based on consumer research) in order to better anticipate the market reaction to a given promotion strategy. Our basic hypothesis in this context is, that, in order to develop efficiently the sales of a product, we need to change marketing parameters, (such as price) in order to modify the consumer's perception of the product and its surrounding system. Further more, we think that these parameters will be different according to different target groups or market segments. These hypotheses will be illustrated by one case carried out in Germany.
This study was conducted in France to obtain a better knowledge on the consumer's attitude towards couponing promotions. Similar studies were conducted by NIELSEN in other countries (United Kingdom and United States) and it is interesting to make some comparisons. Another reason: the number of distributed coupons drastically fell between 1973 and 1975 in France and it was important to know if the housewife was involved or not in this decrease. Generally speaking, the objectives of the study were to get either the motives or restraints towards couponing as well from people using coupons as from people not using them. The sample, used in this study, consisted of 1000 housewives standing for about 16 million households in France. These 1000 housewives were interviewed at home. One important achievement of the study was the acknowledgement of no unfavourable reaction against coupon either from retailers or from consumers.
The paper starts with an overview of promotions in general, concentrating on the authors' conviction that strong brands should try to devise premium and/or contest promotions which are brand-related. Brand-related promotions maximize the chance of exclusive and positive association with the brand's image. The use of a snecific brand symbol may facilitate this association. After a general background of relevant data on the hutch detergents market, the marketing history of Bio-tex is shortly described. It shows in some detail the interrelation between theme advertising and promotions philosophy. Bio-tex has been using mascots as main identification symbols. Since 1973 however, the main characteristic of Bio-tex promotions has been artistic creativity on the part of the consumer. The paper ends by describing the Bio-tex autumn promotions of 1973,1974, and 1975 in terms of the research that accompanied the development of these promotions. The authors feel that the information of the research done, virtually helped the company to improve the planning and execution of promotions.
In considering what might happen to the promotions industry in the future, it is essential to go back to the latter part of 1973 at the start of the economic crisis and continuing period of difficult marketing and trading conditions. It is important to look at events under three broad headings; the economy, consumerism and legislation, and the individual and collective effect that these areas have had on the business. Much of what I will say is based on experience in the United Kingdom but there are many aspects in fact or in principle which are readily applicable to countries in Europe, both inside and outside of the European Economic Community. Firstly then, a brief look at the historical background - the real world in which we do business, or to be more specific, promote.
Ultimately we need to establish the effects which promotions have on the consumer- i.e. any increased purchasing in the short term, or changes in attitudes and loyalty in the longer term - and to relate this to costs. Where promotions are aimed at the retail trade, retailers can also be regarded as "consumers" in this context. In any case, consumer sales remain the final yard-stick. To learn about the effects of promotions might imply running controlled experiments comparing behaviour or attitudes with promotions arid without promotions. But controlled experiments for evaluating short-term effects in real life situations are difficult and expensive to mount, and virtually impossible in attempting to evaluate longer-term effects. Two other approaches are therefore needed. One is the use of theoretical norms for evaluating real-life marketing situations. The other the use of deliberately artificial or semi-artificial testing procedures. These two approaches will be discussed here.
The objective of this seminar is to bring together marketing people, marketing researchers, promotions people, and people from the trade, and to try to establish a conceptual framework by an exchange of their different points of view.
In this article we show how the effects of many marketing actions can now be evaluated in some detail. The basic question considered is not whether there was any positive effect at all (eg on total sales) but what kind of effect it was (eg extra penetration or heavier purchasing from existing customers). To make such evaluations, we need to compare what actually happened with what would have happened without the marketing action. Research in the last decade has facilitated such comparisons without having to run controlled experiments. Instead of having to measure directly what would have happened without the marketing action, it is now possible to predict such norms successfully. The case-history described in this article is one where a controlled experiment could in fact have been mounted, if it based on a study for the J. Walter Thompson Company had been planned in time. The special lesson therefore is to show how an evaluation could actually be carried out after the event, and how ibis was in any case much cheaper. The approach adopted has already been applied in evaluating many marketing situations, such as price-changes, new brands, relaunches, seasonal trends, life-cycle assessments, private label brands, and various kinds of consumer and retail promotions. As a specific example we describe here a case-history which involved a consumer promotion or deal'.
Our study was based on representative samples of important groups of the food trade: 50 interviews among wholesale companies: 50 interviews among central offices of chains and 333 interviews among retailers with an annual sales volume of DM 200.000 or more. Generally, the owner or general manager was interviewed, in larger companies the person in charge of promotional activities. Fieldwork ran from Juli to September 1971 . Armin Hoeger, at that time Nestle's research director, subsequently became an independent research consultant and started, at first together with "Lebensmittel-Zeitung", now with GfK, a weekly audit of promotions in the food trade. It is called "PID" (Promotion Informations Dienst). Its inauguration was the logical consequence of the earlier piece of research. Both began to close a gap in our knowledge at a time when promotional activities increased significantly and played a growing part in the efforts of both producers and trade companies to hold or increase their shares of market. Armin Hoeger has kindly supplied me with material from PID for this contribution, which is gratefully acknowledged. PID is based on weekly surveys by Interviewers in a panel of 100 food shops, carefully selected to fairly represent those with annual sales of DM 1 million and more.