Changing Face of Consumer Promotions in India
November 27, 2009
Consumer Promotions in India have been generally about using Below the Line Marketing to drive a particular single promotion. Give a freebie, use a scratch card to get gifts or a percentage discount on the current purchase or giving the consumer a bulk discount i.e. Get one soap bar free when you purchase 3 bars.
Even couple of years back, this was the most visible face of Consumer Promotions. Not any more. With the advent of coupons and deals, the definition and execution of this kind of Marketing has changed completely.
Now just look around and find all leading grocery chains putting their top deals together and giving it out in one place to attract consumers. Star Bazaar, More, Spencers etc are putting their top deals in a paper insert and sending it out. In fact for grocery chains, deals based marketing has replaced traditional advertisements completely. For example, check the Big Bazaar ads in newspapers which are completely centred around coupons and deals and those deals and expected savings act as the major attraction for the consumers.
Pizza companies are going a step ahead. Large chains are regularly giving out coupons with the take away menus. These are also investing heavily in creating loyalty clubs where members are rewarded with good coupons on a monthly basis. Dominos has been sending a very well compiled coupons booklet to its loyal customers and Pizza Hut has created a VIP (Very Interested in Pizza!!) Club for its loyal base. In all these cases, the focus has all been around driving repeat purchasing using the most interesting and useful coupons. The next step could very well be customizing the coupons based on usage by the consumers. One consumer may get pasta coupons while the other one may get coupon on extra cheese toppings.
Marketing Managers of many other products and services categories are seriously working on using the deal and coupons driven consumer promotion to drive trials and repeat purchase. The most interesting ones have been in weight loss programs!! pay for one kg and lose two!!
Coupons and deals are changing the face and the weight of Promotions Marketing for sure.
open2save has worked with many of its clients to build coupon based consumer promotions including measuring ROI and effectiveness of deal/coupon and the channels.
open2save also lists consumer promotions of leading chains on open2save.com for its members.
In the second part of this series I will discuss how digital channels are being used for effective consumer promotions.
