Abstract:

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.