shell philippines' 24/7 consumer promo program

well, yes we gas up at shell. and we noticed that shell runs back-to-back consumer promotions. that is strange.

the marketing idea behind consumer promotions is to pump up volume sales and market share over non-promoted months. consumer promos will either get new users to try the product and/or get current users to increase their purchase. getting a bump on those hopefully will enable to retain and convert new users into regular users and build loyalty among current users.

what is the point then of conducting consumer promotions 24/7?

first, how do you assess the success of the promos you conduct? all months are promoted, there is no way to determine one promo was able or unable to push up sales and market share.

the marketing expense will be extremely high. consumer promotions are expensive to conduct. having a consumer promotion 24/7 means the product margins will be lower.

instead of conducting consumer promos 24/7, i would instead take that marketing expense and lower down the gas prices of their products. oil products as anyone know is very price sensitive. consumers actually know exactly how much they paid for it the last time they filled up their vehicles with gas. lowering the price of gasoline we think is the most effective way to lure in new users and increase purchase of regular users.

shell and the other big 2 oil companies, petron and caltex are in direct competition with smaller oil retailers. the small oil retailers are always able to under-cut the big 3's pricing. the big 3 know that if their gas station is beside or near any one of the small oil retailers, they will need to keep their prices as low as possible as they know not doing that will mean consumers will move to the small players.

moving the consumer promo expense to lowering the retail price of their products will allow shell to better compete with these small retailers. but i will do a little more than just lowering the gas prices, i will do something more creative and more attention grabbing than just doing a universal price decrease. i would treat the price reduction like a consumer promotion but will be creative in implementing it so that it gets the most attention and surge they need.

what can these creative ways be? that is next here in WAWAM!

hot ideas for tHe idiOts proMo

holistic dog food

• 50% price discount on holistic dog food - some fantastically wild price discount would have been the best promo they could have done for holistic. not being in the market for 3 months meant all their previous buyers have shifted to other brands and they have earned the hate and anger of these disappointed buyers. the best way to win them back to the brand is a huge price discount. they could have done this for at least one month to make sure they are able to capture the purchase cycle.
• letter of apology - this should have been done on week 2 from the time they knew they will not have stocks for 3 months. of course they knew this - they import the brand from the US and it takes anywhere from 6 weeks to 8 weeks to get the goods from the US to arrive at philippine ports. the letter of apology would have also included an explanation on the stock outs and announce a hot line number that buyers can call to get up-todate information on availability. this is the least that they could have done. dog owners should have been given accurate information to plan ahead.

speed babad detergent powder

• piolo pascual detergent container - a container where labanderas can store their speed babad powder with of course piolo's face on it.
• piolo pascual batya (wash basin) - with piolo pascual's face at the bottom. the labanderas can stare at piolo's handsome face the whole time they are doing their soaking.
• piolo pascual bangko (small chair) - with piolo pascual's face on the chair. you don't do a lot of seating down when you soak clothes but we are sure its a titillating thought for labanderas to be seating their butts on piolo's handsome face. whew! hot!

holistic dog food's promo got holes - fine example of tHe idiOts proMo

end of last year, holistic dog food ran out of stock from metro manila pet food shops. it was not available for a long time, like 3 to 4 months. stocks were made available again sometime end december, so that means there were no stocks from september to december.

3 to 4 months of not having stocks in pet food stores i think is suicide for any food product, most specially for pet food. pets do tend to eat the same thing over and over again. getting them to switch to another brand is quite difficult and takes a bit of doing.

but with that length of time that holistic dog food was not available, all pet owners must have been forced to switch to other brands. not feeding your dogs anything for 3 to 4 months will mean your pet dog will die.

from a marketing and sales standpoint, that means from whatever market share they had, it would be like zero by the end of december.

for the holistic company and the distributor of holistic dog food it means its crisis of biggest proportions that any company will face. not only have they lost market share and now to zero, they have lost all kinds of goodwill or affinity dog owners have for their brand.

selling holistic again in december is not only just like launching the brand for the first time in the philippine market, its much worse than that as they are re-launching with a lot of ill-feelings towards the brand

they obviously need to go back to the market with a lot of effort to win back previous buyers of the dog food. doing a consumer promo is the thing to do. promos is one excellent way of getting consumers back into purchaing your brand. advertising actually is probably the most potent, but if budgets don't allow for advertising, then a promo is the next best thing.

this is the market situation that holistic dog food was facing - 0% market share and 1,000% ill-will of previous buyers towards the brand. the common sensical thing to do, even for non marketing people, is to go into a gang bang promo, give an offer buyers cannot refuse.

and yes, holistic dog food did launch a promo when they re-stocked their product in the stores. they did a consumer premium. they give you this premium for every bag of holistic dog food which cost anywhere from P500.00 to P1,900.00

we have a pictures of the premium. please when you see the premium, tell us how you reacted in seeing the pictures of the premium.





i bet your reaction to the gang buster premium offer is the same reaction i gave : "what the f**k is this?".

not only was i disgusted and angry, i honestly felt insulted by the premium they gave. after 3 to 4 months of not having the brand and gallant efforts by pet owners to drive to all the pet food stores in metro manila for weeks - they give you a freaking bone-shaped ball pen that not only is super cheap, it looks freaking ugly!

how in the world will that kind of premium encourage angry consumers to buy holistic again? promos are supposed to be offers that consumers can't refuse. this one is the number 1 premium consumers will confuse. this particular promo is supposed to nullify the significant ill-will people felt when holistic was not available in stores, this one does not do any of that, in fact this adds to the injury by insulting the buyers with such a cheap and ugly premium.

the only reason i bought holisitic again is my dog has an allergy and this is the brand that gave my dog the least allergy. that purchase will be last that i will make of holistic while i look for other brands. getting that premium from holistic solidifies my distaste of the holistic brand.

holistic did not even bother to give me or post a letter of apology to buyers in the pet stores. that would have been the least that they could have done.

clearly, this holistic dog food promo is tHe idiOts proMo!

new in WAWAM! : tHe idiOts proMo

Today,

January 15, 2009

we are proud to launch

WAWAM!'s

tHe idiOts proMo

this is a consumer promotion

that brands and companies impose on consumers

with the objective, as all consumer promos are supposed to have,

to increase sales of their products.

the core idea behind a promo

is to offer the consumer something extra,

something as the Godfather will say,

"An offer the consumer cannot refuse."

This can be a

price discount, a premium,

additional product, a raffle or a contest

that is meant to entice consumers

to purchase the brand over others or

purchase more of the brand.

An increase

of at least 30% in volume sales over the non-promo period

is the typical measure of a success

of a consumer promotion.

a consumer promotion turns into a

tHe idiOts proMo

when the promo offer is so idiotic

that it is highly unlikely

that the offer will entice consumers to buy the product.

in other words,

unlike what the Godfather said,

this brand gave the consumer

an offer he will definitely refuse.