Clutter: Extras, Extras!

Posted on by Chief Marketer Staff

Don’t stop the presses.

Rebates, celebrity endorsements, games, sweepstakes, and contests, cross-promotions, and coupons galore make in-print promotional ads plentiful and more noticeable than their image-building counterparts.

PROMO scanned 10 magazines and two Sunday newspapers to get the scoop — not exactly the average consumer’s afternoon, but a good sampling of what’s out there. We scoured June or July issues of Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated, Parents, BusinessWeek, Runner’s World, Teen Beat, Stuff, US Weekly, People Weekly, and Sunday editions of the New York Times and the Stamford (CT) Advocate.

Out of a total 667 ads, 296 offered a special something — or in the most extreme cases, a special something times three: Teen Beat included a convoluted inside back cover ad offering a “limited edition” ‘N Sync T-shirt available only at Planet Hollywood … with a percentage of proceeds going to the boy band’s charity foundation for kids.

Among promotional messages, celebrity endorsements were tops with 29 examples. While newspaper advertising was dominated by sales offers (most of the Sizzlin’ Summer variety), store circulars, and FSIs, magazines generally went the entertainment tie-in or sweeps route.

The Monthly Rag

A surprisingly high 30 percent of all ads within the 10 magazines contained a promotional message. (A less-surprising 66 percent carried a corporate or brand-specific URL.) The ratio ranged from highs of 50 percent in Teen Beat and 48 percent in Entertainment Weekly to a low of 12 percent in BusinessWeek.

Licensed images — celebrity endorsers or entertainment properties — represented 48 of the 110 promo ads. The Hardest Working Character in the Promotion Business award goes to Batman, whose OnStar ads appeared in three titles. The Know Your Audience award goes to Coca-Cola, which used Christina Aguilera in Entertainment Weekly and ESPN personality Chris Berman in Sports Illustrated. The What’s a Big Guy Like You Doing in an Ad Like This award goes to NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, who starred in an ad for Web-hosting service Digex in BusinessWeek.

We found 16 cases of sweepstakes, games, or contests, most of which reflected the tastes of the publications in which they ran. The unlikely trio of Big Red gum, Viva Resorts, and Motorola teamed up for a sweeps in US Weekly offering a week-long trip to Mexico for 30 guys and 30 girls. In men’s magazine Stuff, Swisher Sweets hosted one for a brand new Chevy. Coke’s Pop the Top effort dangled a day on the video set with Aguilera in EW and a party with Chris Berman (as part of a football-themed trip to Hawaii) in SI.

For the younger set, there was the Trolli Gummi Candies instant-win game ad in Teen Beat, which promoted an in-pack instant-win game doling out a garage-ful of sports gear and an appearance on Nickelodeon’s GAS. For their stressed-out moms, there was the Ford Blue Oval sweepstakes in Cosmopolitan offering a day for two at a luxury spa.

Hands-down best attention-getter was the Lipton Cold Brew iced-tea sample in EW — a unique category for sampling and the only one in the magazine, communicated in vivid yellow.

The Daily Grind

In the two newspapers, 61 percent of 301 ads (not counting classifieds) featured a promotion.

Editorial sections contained sales ads and the occasional free-product or rebate offer, along with a handful of gift-with-purchase deals. The Times carried circulars from Circuit City, Kohl’s, Huffman Koos, and a one-pager from Toys “R” Us. The Advocate’s circular count included the three already mentioned along with others from CVS and a real estate developer.

The Valassis FSI package ran 12 pages (with 18 advertisers) in the Advocate and 10 (13) in the Times. Most were standard coupon offers, with the exceptions being a Michael Jordan-bedecked Rayovac ad and a Hills Bros. sweeps.

SmartSource had 16 pages in the Advocate and 12 in the Times. Sprucing up the typical coupons were the Merit Rewards loyalty program and a Pedigree Dog Food free-product offer. (We won’t mention the ad for the Porkchesters sculpted pig collection.)

Most memorable: An eight-page insert in the Advocate touting Procter & Gamble’s tie to Give Kids the World, a charity affiliated with SeaWorld. The insert provided $20.95 in product coupons and the promise of a 10-cent donation to the charity for every purchase.

That one was hot off the presses.

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