promotional thinking

Promotions are in the air. Christmas is always the time of the big give-aways in adland and this year is building up to a bumper bunch of presents. To create a really successful promotion you need a campaign that catches the attention of Johnny public and the best way to do that is the “bloody big prize” route. Something that’s not only irresistible but also relevant.

In Somalia, for instance, they recently ran a quiz loaded with local interest, the questions were all local geography and religious, Koran based, puzzles. It was, according to a representative for the al-Shabab militant group, “an attempt to stop young men wasting their time and to get them to focus on defending their territory.” As admirable an ambition as any prayer for world peace from a Miss World hopeful.
Winners of the Somali quiz walked away with anti-tank mines, grenades and that most sought after of consumer durables, the AK-47 assault rifle.

"The reason the young men were rewarded with weapons is to encourage them to participate in the ongoing holy war against the enemies of Allah in Somalia," al-Shabab's Sheikh Abdullahi Alhaq was quoted as saying at the prize-giving ceremony.
The winning team, from the city's Farjano district, won a rifle, two grenades, a landmine and some slightly less incendiary office supplies worth around $1,000. Other contestants didn’t go home totally unarmed by failure, taking away armfuls of AK-47s and pockets crammed with bullets. It was a huge hit with local guys and a solid promotional gimmick I think young Quentin down the Brazen Head could bear in mind next quiz night.

Knowing your audience is everything you see, something that continually annoys my slightly tetchy art director who is constantly being harassed by a local group of Portuguese restaurants via sms having made the error of eating at one of their branches and paying by credit card. This blanket smsing of past customers is fast becoming the junk mail of the 21st century and I urge one and all to answer them with a barrage of abuse, maybe then they’ll go away. But I doubt it.

My very own service provider, an oxymoron as deft as military intelligence or client service, is constantly inviting me to earn more free airtime in their seemingly never ending promotions. I don’t really understand their aim, I am already bound to them with a life-threatening contract for two years of my life I really don’t need a polymorphic ringing tone of a frog singing the national anthem.

Another promotion that was as pinpoint targeted as the Somalian quiz was the “Save Gaza” campaign in the Middle East. No matter what our own personal opinion on the conflict itself we are all privy to its horrors through the harrowing news footage beamed to our homes while we’re munching on our Woolies couscous salads of an evening.
The “Save Gaza” campaign was actually a harsh cry for help to stop the brutal siege of the area by highlighting the need for food and well, everything, with some urgency.
The people who created the campaign slapped “calls to action” on the labels of the actual products, so a tin of beans came with the sticker that read, “These products are needed now in the occupied territories.” Hard to ignore on bread and beans perhaps, harder still on containers of baby milk and nappies. Many shops came to the party donating shelf space and hanging posters supporting the initiative. As with any strong promotion word of mouth increased the message exponentially and the call was taken up by the people on the street.

The reality of course, is that no matter how morally bankrupt or admirable the aim of a promotion might be, everyone loves something for free, which is why no matter how dodgy they might seem I’m always keen on a good promotion.