Healthy Results

Tough economic times didn’t dim the caliber of entries for this year’s PRO Awards. In fact, tight purse strings may have upped the ante for solid, strategic campaigns.

Some of the winning campaigns were deliciously intricate. The Best Overall Promotion — Safeway’s Eat Like a Champion, by CoActive Marketing — mixed 15 produce marketers, 1,700 supermarkets, a roster of soccer stars, and thousands of schoolkids to boost incremental sales of fruits and veggies. (It also won Best Idea or Concept and Best Account-Specific Campaign.) Procter & Gamble spent five months in high school locker rooms to get football teams into its Red Zone. Intel Corp. built 50 chest braces so “messengers” could wear computers for a Manhattan sampling blitz.

The competition fielded a record 239 entries across 15 categories. PRO Award judges — marketers, agency execs, and PROMO’s editorial staff — culled the finalists and winners over two days of judging. In the end, we had a handful of very strong, strategic campaigns that show the brains and fun in promotion marketing.

The 12th Annual PRO Awards were presented last month at PROMO Expo, where PROMO also inducted Guinness UDV’s long-running Win Your Own Pub in Ireland campaign into the Hall of Fame, which was established last year to recognize campaigns that have brought in strong results year after year. The Pub campaign was created by Creative Alliance (now Creative AIM), Southport, CT. It ran six years, from 1994 to 1999, and remains one of the best examples of an ownable campaign tailor-made for the brand. Win Your Own Pub joins Camp Jeep, inducted into the Hall of Fame last year.

Longevity isn’t easy. In fact, it’s ironic that Safeway dropped Eat Like a Champion after three superbly successful flights. Sometimes, the toughest job is to keep pursuing the right idea.

Best Overall Promotion
Best Idea or Concept
Best Account-Specific Campaign

Campaign: Eat Like a Champion
Agency: CoActive Marketing Group, Cincinnati
Client: Safeway, Inc., Pleasanton, CA

Like a big tossed salad, Eat Like a Champion had lots of ingredients: More than a dozen marketer partners, 1,700 supermarkets, classroom activities, soccer stars, and a government-sanctioned non-profit. And consumers ate it up.

Eat Like a Champion boosted fresh-produce sales by persuading kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. Safeway, Inc. tapped its 21-year-old alliance with the 5 A Day campaign, then added U.S. Soccer stars and several produce marketers for a month-long program in-store and in classrooms. Each store (including Safeway, Vons, and Dominick’s) adopted a local school; kids toured the produce department, then tracked their fruit and veg servings for 21 days on a classroom chart to earn soccer bookmarks, trading cards, and other treats from the teacher. Eight soccer greats including Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, and Eddie Pope appeared on classroom premiums, ads, and P-O-P items and visited schools and stores.

Sales jumped 61 percent the first flight (March 2001), 35 percent the second run (September 2001), and 45 percent the third time (February 2002). Most of the gain was incremental as families ate more produce. Del Monte ran out of pineapple before Easter; the Washington State Apple Commission ran through its supply by March, although it should have lasted until June.

The national promo broadened as produce partners joined, kicking in $150,000 to $500,000 to play. The first run had six brands; the second run, 12; and the final push in February had 15 partner brands. Partners say they got $1.50 worth of performance for every $1 they spent — a far cry from the average 35 percent of trade spending that typically reaches consumers.

The idea started when produce marketer Fresh Express asked promo shop CoActive Marketing for an account-specific idea to pitch Safeway, the largest U.S. produce retailer in the U.S. Safeway wanted to build community relations; Fresh Express suggested a 5 A Day tie-in “cloaked in soccer,” says CoActive senior vp Rod Taylor. “A promotion like this needs lots of partners and borrowed equity that kids find attractive, because simply saying, ‘It’s good for youÙ doesn’t sell it to kids.”

The pitch listed soccer players that CoActive knew it could afford, says Taylor. Don Harris, Safeway’s director of produce marketing (now produce director of sales and marketing for Canada), asked why Hamm wasn’t included. “We said it would cost six figures. He said, ‘No problem, we’ll get another partner,’” recalls Taylor. “We were tickled that a retailer would say ‘Let’s spend more money and do it right.’”

“Retailers notoriously want to handle the money,” says Harris. “This program worked because my company never touched the money. The hardest part was dealing with 11 Safeway divisions and making sure they followed through. It wouldn’t have happened without CoActive, because they were the one link that kept it all coordinated.”

Safeway stores adopted a different school for each flight, reaching 1.8 million kids in all. It reached another audience, too: “This program encouraged more retailers to get off the stick and participate with 5 A Day than anything you could have said to them,” says Amy Bielicki, vp-marketing at Produce for Better Health Foundation-5 A Day, Washington, DC. “Brand marketers look at this model and say it has everything you need for a successful program.”

“It was never a hard sell, even with [regional] Safeway people, who are very independent,” says Harris. “They believed in the premise of the program.”

The February 2002 flight added a 5 A Day fundraiser, selling consumers a booklet of 40 recipes that had appeared on display tear pads. The overlay raised $60,000 for 5 A Day.

Safeway declined to run Champion again this spring. Fresh Express and CoActive, Great Neck, NY, are talking with top U.S. grocers about similar campaigns. (Boise-based Albertsons turned down the soccer-themed rendition last year.) Despite the roster change, the idea plays on.

Best Multi-Discipline Campaign

Campaign: Discover Card Gets You On GameDay Challenge
Agency: Marketing Werks, Chicago
Client: Discover Card, Riverwoods, IL

In years past, Discover Card was locked out of major sports sponsorships by competitors Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. In 2001, Discover Card fashioned its own ballgame — and ran with it. Discover Card teamed with ESPN in 2000 to reach younger consumers. It hitched a ride with the cable network’s College GameDay show, broadcast from college campuses around the country (May PROMO). It was a truly guerrilla effort: Discover Card reps approached people in the stands and awarded merchandise to those carrying Discover Cards.

Fans’ rabid response gave John Birmingham the idea for something bigger and better. “You see how passionate people are about this game,” says Discover Card’s director of advertising and brand management. “It opens up a terrific access point.”

So in 2001, Discover Card let fans audition to get on College GameDay. Fans entered their winner picks for each week’s college games online. Discover Card narrowed the field to the top 25 handicappers (demonstrating the authenticity of its commitment to college football). Those finalists got an audition kit with camera, video tapes, and instructions on how to audition for College GameDay. The ABC/ESPN media stable supported, as well as Discover Card statement inserts, Web sites, and its video sign in Times Square. Sporting goods retailer Foot Locker ran promotion spots over its in-store network and offered $10 off purchases of $50 or more to Discover Card holders.

Fans at each college game could be videotaped on a mock College GameDay set, with cardboard cutouts of the show’s announcers. A 180-person V.I.P. grandstand was open only to Discover Card holders who showed a Discover Card receipt from that week totaling $25 or more.

The 14-stop tour drew 1.1 million attendees, distributed more than 50,000 premiums, and recorded 3,330 auditions. The tour got more than $5 million in free media exposure, and the contest and tour combined made 825 million impressions. The promotion was so successful that Discover Card kicked off a new version for the 2002 season, this time allowing consumers to audition for a guest spot on College GameDay at local Best Buy stores around the country.

Best Use Of Advertising

Campaign: The Orbit Institute
Agency: GMR Marketing, New Berlin, WI
Client: Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., Chicago

Introducing a new gum in the U.S. can be a tough chew. Wrigley and agency GMR Marketing decided to have a little fun with Orbit’s relaunch with an integrated campaign that married scooters and a mock scientific institute.

Sugar-free Orbit has been popular in Europe for years, but had no presence in the U.S. despite a one-year run in the late 70s. All of the new marketing plugged a “Clean Mouth Guarantee” to go up against sugar-free rival Trident’s theme, “Have it Together.”

Aggressive sampling supported national TV and print advertising that featured a British “Vanessa” recounting tongue-in-cheek tests by the fictitious Orbit Institute (testers get filthy, but their mouths stay clean). Two flights of sampling sent Orbit Institute “professors” and “Orbit Field Research Teams” out on retro Vespa scooters from Piaggio USA to deliver 4.4 million samples in nine cities from October to November, then 2.8 million samples in 23 more cities March through May. An additional 12 million samples were handed out by taxi-cab drivers. The cabs carried the Orbit logo on their roofs and distributed receipts that touted Orbit gum on the back.

“The scooters are very hip and have a European feeling, which worked perfectly with the brand,” says Shari Matras, senior marketing manager for oral care at Wrigley.

Sales from the entire October 2001 through May 2002 time period jumped 57 and 56 percent for Orbit Peppermint and Orbit Wintermint, respectively. Orbit’s market share in the entire gum category increased six percent for both Peppermint and Wintermint.

“Trial far exceeded any gum product launch, with the exception of Winterfresh in 1994, when it was a different category,” Matras says.

Part of what made the program a success was that the client was willing to develop an integrated promotion while the creative elements were still emerging, says Steve Jarvis, senior vp of business development at GMR Marketing. “Traditionally, the deadlines in the individual disciplines keep everyone in their own silos, but [Wrigley] let us break down the barriers and get the consumer testing going early,” he says.

GMR Marketing also got positive feedback from within the promotion industry. “Our peer group got it and that was encouraging,” Jarvis says.

Best Use of Event Marketing

Campaign: Do More, Carry Less
Agency: GMR Marketing, New Berlin, WI
Client: Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA

Intel wanted to make its new Mobile Pentium 4 processor tangible and demonstrate the versatility of wireless computing, so it hit Manhattan streets with a one-day demo blitz, sweeps, and free concert.

The April 23 launch sent 50 “mobile messengers” with PCs braced against their chests roaming the streets to let passersby try the processor. Another 25 dressed in Intel-branded clothes tooled around on in-line skates and bikes (courtesy of partner Giant Bicycles) to boost awareness. An Intel Mobile Zone in Bryant Park — the country’s first “wireless park,” where mobile computers get free online access — used kiosks to showcase 15 applications including music, gaming, and photography. Intel drove retail traffic with an in-store overlay: Folks who went to retail to try Intel-powered computers scored a ticket to the VIP section of the free Barenaked Ladies concert in Bryant Park that night. Kiosks at Penn Station and Columbia University extended the reach, and a morning press event in Grand Central Station drove p.r. “Passports” handed out at all venues mapped the day’s activities and explained how to get concert tickets. Partner SoBe sampled beverages at all venues. Outdoor ads via Messner Euro RSCG, New York City, had playful headlines like “New Yorkers love great takeout.”

Intel drove 8,000 people to retail and boosted sales: Fourteen to 17 percent of all PCs sold in participating stores had the mobile processor, compared to four percent in the total U.S. Ten thousand attended the free concert (on an Intel-branded stage) and 91 percent of event participants associated Intel with mobile leadership by the end of the day.

Outfitting mobile messengers was tricky, says Intel consumer manager for events and sponsorships Chris Katsuleres. “We thought long and hard about how to roam, but in a somewhat controlled environment,” he says. A medical-equipment company designed messengers’ chest brace for agency GMR Marketing.

“Intel technology makes consumers’ lives richer. We take technology into their daily lives,” says Katsuleres. “[Events] let consumers get up close to the brand, and [build] preference and conviction.”

Best Use Of Direct Marketing

Campaign: Chicago Bears Permanent Seat License
Agency: Beyond DDB, Chicago
Client: Chicago Bears Football Team, Chicago

The Chicago Bear’s toughest challenge last year wasn’t on the gridiron. It was convincing fans to cough up $4,000 to $5,000 in an extremely tight economy to buy the right to purchase permanent seat licenses (a hard sell to anyone, particularly fans who had owned season tickets for years). That was exacerbated by a firestorm of media coverage over the renovation of Soldier Field and the fact that the Bears would play the 2002 season in downstate Champaign during the construction.

Then add the fact that Beyond DDB had to turn around the program in two months with a production budget of just $250,000, and the Bears faced the marketing equivalent of a fourth down punt.

To woo permanent seat license buyers, the program focused on the emotional connection with the team, not money. “There’s so much history with the Bears — this is really the charter franchise of the NFL,” says Bears director of marketing communications Linda Connors.

Instead of a matter-of-fact breakdown of PSL options, the Bears mailed fans a glossy, 32-page brochure featuring photographs and information on the team past and present. “We wanted something [fans] would like enough to use as a coffee table book,” says Connors. The brochure was mailed to new prospects and 14,000 existing season ticket holders (who also got 15 percent off the PSL price). The first fans to buy PSLs also got perks such as a permanent display bearing their name at the new stadium site, and a Bears’ construction hard-hat. Fans who paid off their PSLs in full were invited to a Bears party with current and former coaches and players.

In just four weeks, the team sold 30,000 PSLs, outstripping its goal of 27,500. Each applicant had to pay at least 25 percent with his application; the average exceeded that by 10 percent.

The program earned raves from outsiders as well. Sports consultant Max Muhleman — a specialist in ticketing for high-end venues — declared the Bears PSL program the best he’s ever seen, and recommended a similar model to other NFL teams.

Most Innovative Communication Strategy

Campaign: VAIO-Engaging the Mobile Professional
Agency: Y&R Brand Buzz, New York City
Client: Sony Corp. of America, New York City

Sony’s sleek VAIO laptop suits business travelers, so Sony met them at the airport (and train station). Sony blitzed travelers in 15 cities with ads all around the terminal and gave demos at kiosks inside and via VAIO-wrapped Jeeps outside.

“You evangelize your product where your target customer is likely to be,” says Chris Pollitt, Sony’s strategic marketing manager-VAIO. “It was so overt and pleasantly overwhelming. People found it exciting because it was unconventional.”

Demo teams gave travelers Z cards with train-station and airport maps and info on VAIO. A sweeps (tagged on Z cards and run online) gave away 1,000 prizes, including VAIO notebooks as grand prizes and Delta Sky Miles and Zagat guides. A deal with Delta Airlines put VAIOs in all Delta Crown Rooms, messages on breakfast bags for flights, and mentions in Delta’s frequent-flier e-mails. Partners Microsoft Corp. (for Windows XP) and Intel Corp. (for Pentium 3M) got triple-duty from demos.

Pollitt credits VAIO’s sleek design for drawing as much attention as the enormous signs throughout terminals.

“Part of VAIO’s allure is that the fit, finish, and design are beautiful. Having product there really helped,” he says. Some commuters proffered credit cards on the spot — even for the Jeep. (Alas, no computers or cars were for sale.)

Airport and train-station managers wary of post-Sept. 11 promos let the December-March campaign go on. (It ran in 12 airports as well as rail stations in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.) The blitz prompted nearly 100-percent recall and helped bump VAIO sales 11 percent. “We saw an uplift in sales among people considering a purchase, and a healthy uptick in sales overall,” says Pollitt.

Best Use Of New Media

Campaign: Celebrity You’ve Got Mail
Agency: In-house with Seismicom, San Francisco
Client: America Online, Dulles, VA

After resurrecting its 1997 Celebrity You’ve Got Mail e-mail campaign in 2001, America Online turned the effort (now dubbed CYGM) into a full-blown franchise in 2002 with more celebrity voices, prizes, and visibility.

“This is now a franchise for AOL, and we will be doing it for 2003,” says senior manager of brand marketing and promotion Lisa Namerow.

While the 2001 effort asked consumers to guess three different mystery voices uttering the famous AOL greetings “Welcome” and “You’ve got mail” each week for a month, the 2002 campaign featured a different voice each day for a month.

CYGM also went further to tap combined AOL Time Warner resources and recruit offline partners. Many celebs came from the Time Warner entertainment stable, and used their CYGM participation to leverage other projects (Matthew Perry was featured on the same day as the season finale of Friends). Additional celebrities included Austin Powers’ Dr. Evil.

The prize pool included four new DaimlerChrysler vehicles, including Jeeps and PT Cruisers. (Last year’s flight gave away three Mazda Miatas and trips to the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards). Blockbuster lent a hand again with TV spots on its in-store network and end-cap displays that courted new subscribers by letting them participate in the contest. Posters ran in 8,300 Burger King restaurants, and United Artists Theatres featured on-screen silent slides promoting the sweeps, and standee displays in the lobby sampling AOL 7.0 CD-ROMs. The CYGM logo was also featured on the No. 30 AOL Chevy NASCAR in two Winston Cup races.

The Time Warner media empire supported with ads in magazines such as People. Elwood Edwards, the original voice of AOL’s catch-phrases, conducted a satellite media tour.

The effort drew 1.9 million online entries (an average 2,421 entries per hour), more than 20,000 write-in entries, and a 33-percent boost in new-member registrations from the Blockbuster end-cap displays. The promotion also generated three million CYGM voice downloads.

Most Effective Long-Term Campaign

Campaign: Natural Confidence
Agency: Noble & Associates, Chicago
Client: Gerber Products, Fremont, MI

Crisis struck the baby food category in the mid-90s when consumers learned that the food contained fillers. As consumers demanded organic — not additive — ingredients, Gerber Products’ share (and the entire baby food category) dropped. Gerber responded in 1997 by reformulating its foods to remove sugar and starch. In 1998, Gerber repackaged products and launched a “Natural Confidence” campaign that touted “No Sugar, No Starch” and included TV and print advertising, medical marketing, and an in-store cassette tape promotion.

Then in 1999, Gerber created a new cooking method called NatureLock to keep in more natural flavors. A NatureLock symbol was added to packaging, direct mail, and in-store materials.

Gerber faced another challenge when competitors introduced baby foods with natural ingredients the following year. The company differentiated its brand with a campaign called the “Growers’ Story,” which illustrated Gerber’s strict standards, long-standing relationships with growers, and ability to track exactly which fields their fruits and vegetables come from.

“The business was in a difficult position and the brand is built on trust, which we were able to rebuild with the new cooking process and reach record market share,” says David Yates, senior vp-Gerber Products. Gerber’s market share rose to 75 percent in 2002 (from 67% in 1997) and the brand got a 90-percent score when moms were asked if Gerber is “best for my baby” (up from 70% in 1996). Plus, 92 percent of moms said that Gerber is “unquestionably safe” compared with 49 percent for competitor Beechnut.

“A 65-year-old brand had to be reformulated, which was a bold step, but it was more successful and that’s why we’re in marketing,” says Elizabeth Sanderson, president of Noble & Associates.

Best Activity Generating Brand Awareness And Trial Recruitment

Campaign: Red Zone
Agency: 360 Youth, Cranbury, NJ
Client: Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati

Procter & Gamble’s Old Spice Red Zone deodorant went head-to-head with rival Right Guard with a promotion that targeted high school football teams. Old Spice’s five-month Player of the Year program ran from August until the end of football season in November. Old Spice teamed with the High School Football Coaches Association, sending Red Zone marketing kits and branded premiums to coaches at 4,000 high schools. A Coaches Starter Kit included samples of Old Spice Red Zone, logoed football practice merchandise (water bottles, towels, whistles), and a coach’s playbook describing the Player of the Year program that let coaches commend offensive and defensive players for their clutch performance in the “red zone” — the final 20 yards before the end zone, where play can dictate a key score or defensive stand.

Each week, participating teams would acknowledge one standout player. At the end of the season, 50 coach-nominated players were named Red Zone Players of the Year and recognized in a full-page ad in USA Today. The ad coincided with the annual College of Letter of Intent signing which reveals the schools that athletes have selected. “You see a lot of brands like Nike working at the college level, but sports marketing really hasn’t broken down to the high school level,” says Rick Mangione, senior vp at 360 Youth.

The promotion generated an 81-percent trial rate, outperforming P&G’s typical 53-percent rate for teen sampling programs. Thirteen percent of those sampled were new or lapsed users who subsequently bought the product. Red Zone sales rose five percent to $24 million, according to Information Resources Inc. Red Zone ran the program again this fall, expanding the number of participating high schools to 15,000.

Best Activity Generating Brand Volume

Campaign: Got a Healthy Smile?
Agency: MarketingDrive Worldwide, Boston
Client: Oral-B, Boston

Oral-B found something to smile about when it used the “got milk?” ad campaign (from the California Fluid Milk Processors Board) to drive sales of its CrossAction toothbrushes. The trick was getting shoppers to the under-trafficked Health and Beauty Care aisle, which draws only 20 percent of supermarket shoppers. “It’s the least traveled but most profitable aisle in the food channel,” says Cindy Jolicoeur, director of account services for MarketingDrive Worldwide.

Then there’s the milk aisle, with so much volume that even a fraction of its traffic would drive profit for HBC aisles. Milk has an 80-percent household penetration, but supermarkets are losing share to mass merchandisers’ grocery aisles.

The Got a Healthy Smile? campaign drew the connection between milk and healthy teeth. Regional displays in the milk and HBC aisles carried tear pads offering free milk (up to $2.99) with the purchase of two CrossAction toothbrushes. A national FSI touted a sweeps giving away a trip for six to Hollywood. (Consumers entered via a toll-free number.) Eighteen key retailers participated in the program with 10,000 incremental displays.

Volume increases ranged from 127 to 155 percent, and Oral-B repeated the promo for summer.

“We found through our research that consumers understood the link between drinking milk and using a clinically proven proper toothbrush,” Jolicouer says.

Best Activity Generating Brand Loyalty

Campaign: Camp Jeep 2002
Agency: BBDO Detroit
Client: DaimlerChrysler, Auburn Hills, MI

In the glutted SUV category, Jeep stands above the crowd. Frankly, it’s not so much the vehicles’ performance but the loyalty the brand commands that make the difference. Jeep does 1,500 events each year to give customers a better feel for the brand, from Jeep 101 to College Road Scholar to the Jeep King of the Mountain ski contest. But Camp Jeep remains the crown jewel.

What other customer appreciation program would prompt 9,000 people from all over the world to descend on the Ozark Mountains, paying $295 for the privilege of possibly destroying their own personal vehicles on one of the off-road courses?

The eighth annual Camp Jeep weathered Sept. 11 events, economic fallout, shakeups in DaimlerChrysler management, and a change of venue to boast one of its most successful years to date. That’s because Camp Jeep’s success is based on staying abreast of trends in the consumer market and giving customers the feeling that they are truly appreciated.

“For every customer you lose, it costs three times as much money to win them back,” says direct marketing manager Lou Bitonti. “Why lose them in the first place?”

Consumers are recruited via a priority mailing to past attendees, new owners, and those who request information. A Jeep Web site allows attendees to get a look at activities from past efforts, which are broken down into different categories. Attendees can learn more about their vehicles through Jeep 101 instruction courses (designed to give city slickers and soccer moms a taste of what their Jeeps can do off-road). The younger crowd can seek thrills through action sports such as mountain biking, BMX, skateboarding, mountain boarding, kayaking, and hiking and outdoor survival classes. Other attendees enjoy general-interest activities such as golf clinics, photography seminars, cooking and painting workshops.

The event concludes with the Camp Jeep Jubilee, a concert and fireworks show put on by the staff. Camp Jeep 2002 drew a 91 percent satisfaction rating from attendees, with 84 percent saying they feel better about the Jeep brand and 95 percent saying if they had to replace their existing vehicle, they would buy another Jeep.

Best Business-to-Business Campaign

Campaign: Red Baron Solo
Agency: Noble & Associates, Chicago
Client: Schwan’s Consumer Brands, Marshall, MN

Schwan’s took a flier on an off-season campaign that put its national Red Baron brand in school lunchrooms — and Lunch Ladies in its signature red bi-planes.

School cafeterias serve delivery pizza to keep kids on-campus, but it isn’t always hot once it arrives. Schwan’s saw an opportunity to take share from Pizza Hut and Domino’s by dishing up single-serve Red Baron pizzas for cafeterias’ à la carte lines.

Foodservice directors who bought Red Baron bake-and-serve pizzas March through May earned trips to the American School Foodservice Association annual industry meeting. (Directors often dangle a trip to the big event as an incentive for cafeteria staffers.) Students got mini bi-planes (just like the Red Baron’s), plastic cards with plane pieces to punch out and assemble. Pizzas were served in individual Red Baron boxes.

There were three tiers of prizes for directors, based on purchase volume: “Co-Pilots” got one-year association membership; “Captains” earned five-year membership. At the top, “Flying Aces” got an expense-paid trip to the conference in Minneapolis, and a flight with the Red Baron Squadron.

The six-plane squadron performs at air shows nationally. (The Red Baron Flight Club tour vehicle tags along with flight simulators, pedal planes for kids, and pizza samples.) The bright red planes happened to be in Minneapolis for the brand’s 50th anniversary, so Red Baron flew its 10 top qualifiers about 100 miles to its Marshall, MN, headquarters.

Mark Jansen got his first flight, too. “There’s a mirror in the cockpit, and the pilots watch your expression,” says the vp-marketing for general foodservice. “I was smiling, so he asked if I wanted to do some maneuvers.”

Jansen and team’s off-season maneuvers worked: The projected sales boost hit right away (25 percent of gains came in the first 60 days), and 90 school districts bought in. Schwan’s repeated the promo this fall (timed to standard foodservice buying cycles) and expects to quintuple its spring results.

“This is an exciting platform that will build on itself,” says Jansen. “It starts with a sound product and promotion concept. We can really build from there.”

Best Dealer Or Sales Force Activity

Campaign: Connection Cards
Agency: PowerPact, LLC, Midlothian, VA
Client: Aventis Oncology, Bridgewater, NJ

Aventis Pharmaceuticals, which markets the advanced breast cancer drug Taxotere, wanted to connect with oncologists and breast cancer patients.

Research showed that oncologists were interested in passing along useful information to patients, and that breast cancer survivors had relied heavily on talking to family and friends for support while in treatment. Aventis wanted to steer away from handing out premiums that had little meaning to the doctor or patient.

The campaign ran during October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Aventis sales reps gave doctors Connection Cards gift pac