We start the first of our regular industry profiles with Becky Munday, CEO of Mando and Past Chair of the IPM in the Prizeology hot seat.
With 19 years in promotional risk management, Becky has earned a stellar reputation as a knowledgeable and rational leader in promotional marketing. Becky consistently drives Mando and her clients’ bottom line year-on-year, by facilitating result-driven promotions within a set budget.
Can you remember your first prize promotion?
Stretching back almost two decades, and I believe it was a Carlsberg promotion. Enter details, send via carrier pigeon and have a chance to win a Ferrari. The grand prize was won and claimed by a middle-aged man from Newcastle.
Whilst a natural reaction would be a delight, instead, it was met with utter dismay. Our new friend was less than pleased when first informed that he was free to cruise beside the River Tyne in his new Ferrari, Sonny Crockett style. He was unable to afford insurance and had reservations as to whether it would still be outside his house in the morning. Our friend wanted stone cold cash. This poor man was lumbered with a Ferrari, so the story ended with us selling it for him on Auto trader. The moral of the story? – don’t enter the promotion if you don’t want the prize. Or a more constructive evaluation would be:
- Ensure prizes suit the demographic.
- Not everyone wants a Ferrari.
- Cash always wins.
What campaign are you most proud of and why?
Ribena win a donkey
Billington Cartmell expertly used Shrek’s Donkey to create a groundbreaking promotion. With the release of Shrek 2, the on-pack promotion was timed to perfection with real synergy between the market and the elected prizes. In the prize we had:
- Real donkeys
- Thousands of cinema tickets
- Thousands of inflatable donkeys
- Top prize £1,000 allowance to visit their donkey
Reinforced with fully integrated PR, cinema, viral, website, in-store, and TV advertising. Even product alteration took place, sending Ribena greener than the competition.
Covering this promotion allowed the agency and brand to deliver thousands of promotions risk-free. The promotion delivered strong bottom line results with incremental sales of £6.86 million – 22.5% over target – and it received 3 MCCA awards, too.
What’s been your biggest promotional lesson?
Don’t judge others by one’s self (know your market, not just yourself). Often prize promotions can be dominated by someone’s personal preferences and clouded by what they deem the great ideal prize. Take the Ferrari for example, an elaborately elegant prize but as the moral proved, did the consumer really want it?
To combat this it requires pragmatic data, with a pragmatic approach. Not only should you attain data, you should analyse what it really means, and how you can use this to make the ideal prize pot. Through extrapolating data, you can also create the ideal communication strategy to engage and connect with your audience. This also applies for the route of entry, make it simple for your demographic.
What campaign do you wish you’d worked on?
The Weetabix house in 2003 was very much ahead of its time. The campaign was revolutionary in its own right, with the cereal giant using the web as a primary channel as opposed to just an additional part of communication, which was truly different at the time. What did it involve?
- A 1 million prize fund with URNs on the pack entered online, compared to typical on-pack collector schemes and self-liquating promotions hoarding the shelves.
- A genuine creative flair. The Weetabix house was accessible online – it had six rooms in total – with winning codes giving the consumer the keys to the online house where they could browse the house for prizes.
As a result of this initiative, it drove sales by 7% and generated more than 730,000 entrants. Promotions like this really woke up the market.
How do you see prize promotions evolving?
Technology is the primary driver of change. Through enhanced data, more accurate monitoring and evolving platforms, it has shaped consumer perceptions, resulting in brands developing the way in which consumers react to prize promotions. Here are a few changes that I think we should expect in the very near future:
- Data and new technologies offer brands the opportunity to gain useful insights. Accessing previous behaviours will help predict those of the future. As everything becomes more traceable, it can allow prize promotions to be better suited to each demographic.
- Mobile and personalisation will continue to drive more engagement. It will become more than just names and addresses, brands may be able to deliver targeted promotions targeted at certain segments of customers within their brand. Giving a real impact to prize promotions.
- Virtual reality and location based marketing will go from strength to strength – just look at Pokemon Go.
- Native ads will evolve further, brands will continue to pay for ad placements and recommendations – this will affect how many people engage with a product and eventually their promotions.
- Brands are becoming braver with their offerings and communications – this will amplify the way in which prize promotions are promoted and how many prizes are allocated.
- Brands will become more compliant thanks to the “General Data Protection Regulation” and take on their own initiatives to show they care. This will benefit personal data archived via promotional marketing.
Brands must be willing to invest whilst marketers must stay abreast of technological advance. Those that dance on the dancefloor will leave those who haven’t home alone.
You can link-in with Becky here and find out more about Mando at www.mando.co.uk.
