Direct response premiums tend to fall into one of two categories: either “Perhaps the kids will like ’em” or “Sure it’s clever, but does it really sell what the marketer’s offering?” The Web has exacerbated this: URLs can be stitched, etched, imprinted or embossed on any conceivable surface, but that doesn’t necessarily make a promotion a good direct response marketing piece.
At the Premium Incentive Marketplace, held in New York in May, exhibitors offered a variety of intriguing, innovative, and yes — occasionally wrongheaded ideas for building brand identity, some of which had strong direct response marketing applications.
Tom Hunter, sales manager for PCPosters, puts it succinctly: “We don’t want premiums that will bounce away.” And in fact, his company’s screen overlays are designed to stay anchored to a target’s monitor.
At first glance, the Precious Mouse might fall into the cute-but-not-practical category. The Precious Mouse is just a gold-embossed computer mouse, with semi-precious stones available for the buttons (leather and silver mouse pad optional).
Is this an ostentatious display of conspicuous consumption? Perhaps, but this premium, from New York-based E.C. Industries, is less likely to go home to the kids, and more likely to be put into use at the workplace, literally at arm’s length of (hopefully) the decision maker.
The trick with such a premium is to make sure it fits the general tone of the product or service being marketed. A gold-plated mouse from, for instance, Worth or Success magazines might be fun in a self-referential way; the same premium from the nonprofit Oxfam International would just be crass.
For both direct response and partner marketing arrangements, Channel Commerce Inc. of Santa Monica, CA gave a new twist to the old “give away the razors to sell the blades” concept. The company sells keyboards to organizations that have partner programs.
The catch is that the 12 function keys that run either along the top or down the side of each keyboard have been repurposed, providing one-touch connections to the Internet sites of partner organizations.
The keys are customizable to whatever URLs the organization purchasing the keyboards wants. Religious institutions, for instance, could provide quick links to sites that provide recipes for specially prepared foods. Business-to-business firms could give links to suppliers of goods that complement their offerings.
Sometimes a medium is so good that it just cuts through the clutter, regardless of the message. Digital Replay Inc.’s postcard, which arrived in our mailbox before the incentive show, featured some of the best 3-D flat work we’ve seen. That alone merited a visit to the company’s booth, especially because we didn’t see ourselves getting out to its Englewood, CO headquarters anytime soon.
The best turn on the postcard concept was the VoiceGram Postcard from Kailua, HI-based Talking Productions. This showed up in our mailbox about a week before the actual show. Everything from the item itself (a third-of-an-inch-thick postcard that can play a marketer’s 20-second message) to the bubbly voice that touted the card and encouraged recipients to visit the vendor’s booth, helped to cut through the clutter.
The card itself costs only 55 cents to mail. Combined with the right targets and right offers, it incorporates sight, sound and touch (it has a nice heft for its size, though it’s not bulky), all of which can be used to reinforce a Web site, a toll-free number, or another response mechanism.
If there’s a problem here, it’s the potential complexity of the device (the card received had an additional seven lines of instructions pasted onto its face to facilitate playing and changing the message) as well as a hard-to-move on/off switch.
For “cute idea, questionable execution” one need look no further than Litecubes, the flagship product from the San Diego-based company of the same name. These plastic devices, which rely on being frozen to activate their light-emitting properties, have three problems.
Outside of being frozen, the things are hard to activate (and therefore to demonstrate): They must be slammed on a hard surface in just the right fashion. Frozen and placed in a drink, the message imprinted on their side is obscured by whatever beverage they’re submerged in.
The hazard of most promotions is that they will go home and become part of the kids’ toy chests. These are made to languish in the freezer. Which is fine, provided the intended audience is a frozen pot roast.
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