Value-Added or Value-Addled?
Grandmother was wrong. There is free lunch! This month’s Bloody Truth is guaranteed to be worth your cost of a whole year’s promo subscription. Read this column and not only will you become a smarter marketer, you will also discover how to get technical support for all your computer problems, fast. Not only fast – free! It’s our little effort to provide “value-added.”
Too often, of course, value-added isn’t of much value at all. That’s because cagey marketers relentlessly strive to craft value out of nothing. Banks, for example, can be notoriously penurious promoters. In an effort to persuade consumers to use their Internet banking service, Citibank recently touted “Pay 2 bills online. Get $25.” Well, not exactly. See, in order to get the 25 bucks, you have to open a new account, one with a $12 monthly service charge, so you really don’t get $25, you get two months free checking on an account that you didn’t need. Customers who already have Citibank accounts get nada and are left drooling from the taste of deprivation. Yuck.
Must added value always come at a cost, then? Probably, but not necessarily. From time to time, clever marketers offer their prospects true value that was acquired at no cost. The usual place to begin looking for these offerings is where other marketers hang out. Seek partners who wish to reach your constituency, and can offer something of value in return for your facilitation. That’s why top promotion creative directors are networkers. Beyond trade shows and Rolodexes, they also find inspiration in less-predictable venues.
When the publishers of MacHome Journal sought to add value to their publication, they networked the Web. Their competitors’ offerings amounted merely to magazine contents reprised in digital form. MacHome imagined something better, like perhaps helping readers with their technical problems. How about an offer of free technical support for any Mac problem they might have? Wouldn’t that be something? Sure, but how to pull it off without going bankrupt?
That’s when they surfed across the bow of Scott Williams, man with a big idea. Imagine believing that you could provide tech support superior to that of Apple – or IBM for that matter? Well, Williams did. Then imagine that you could provide it free, by enlisting an army of volunteers who would do the work in return for mere personal satisfaction. Well, Williams did. It’s called No Wonder, and you can reach the site at nowonder.com. Or, you can find it the way most people have, as a value-added link on machome.com. Because Williams needed exposure for his service, he let MacHome borrow his link for free, as a value-added promotional device. MacHome readers got the benefit and now so can promo readers. Try it!
Buy one get Juan free? The quest for no-cost, value-added promotions can achieve theater-of-the-absurd proportions. Consider Sabritas, the leading Mexican salty snack and a subsidiary of Pepsi. In the epitome of attempted implied endorsement, they inserted photos of El Papa in their papas fritas – a rather parochial acknowledgment of a visit by Pope John Paul II. Suitable for framing? Collect ’em all and get a free absolution? A no-brainer: no talent fees, no residuals, and nobody doesn’t like a charity promotion, right? Wrong. Big-time risk of bad-taste backlash, we think, if not of actual lightning bolts from on high. Duck!
The Butt-Brush Factor. Add this to your Promo Primer! Paco Underhill, the in-store, hidden-camera anthropologist, has developed the theory of “le facteur busculade”, which holds that a woman brushed from behind – whether by a fixture, merchandise, or another person – is less likely to make a purchase. The inference is that products requiring extensive examination should not be positioned in narrow aisles filled with merchandise.
No buts about it.
