Hot on the hoofs of last month’s tribute to the Chicago Cows comes a stampede of cow campaigns. Why not? Animals have the proven ability to evoke human response, second only to babies . . . and, oh yeah, almost forgot, sex.
So here’s a tip-of-the-teat to the folks at Seneca, who clearly know one thing about promotion. They understand that the primary purpose of a sweepstakes is to attract attention to a brand message. Success shouldn’t be measured in quantity of entries. It can’t be measured on ability to motivate purchase because it doesn’t. A successful sweeps is one that sucks more eyeballs toward the brand’s proposition than do competitive brand efforts.
Curiously, that simple purpose is seldom achieved in the pasture of homogenized promotion that constitutes the FSI medium.
Seneca knows how to attract attention: Big, Buckeye, and Baad. A big full-page back cover ad dominates the otherwise splintered FSI offerings. An arresting, albeit buckeye, visual of a red cow interrupts the reader’s 1.3-second attention span. It causes eyes to double-take in search of the answer to “what was that?” Rule-busting copy, “Win A Cow,” is intriguing and cryptic. It forces a double-double take, enticing the reader to the brink of the brand message.
Job well done, then? Au contraire, dear reader. Consider what happens when you’ve successfully drawn attention to an unfathomable message? “Calcium and cranberry juice, an udderly delightful combination.” Is something missing here? Last time we looked, calcium equated to chalk, or limestone powder. Chalk in cranberry juice? Doesn’t exactly convey taste or appetite appeal, does it?
This promotion brings readers to a trough where they find no reason to drink. Is the real benefit, the real magic, that we can’t taste the chalk?
Given heightened awareness of osteoporosis and other bone-related maladies, calcium is about to become the additive of the millennium. You can expect that most juices will introduce calcium-laced line extensions, and that calcium will be found in the most unexpected places. (Calcium in your Copenhagen?) You can also expect the cow puns to continue. But not here, we’re done.
And that’s the udder truth.
ARE THERE NO SACRED COWS?
One of the most respected American personalities is Dr. C. Everett Koop, trusted advocate of consumer health to whom we can now turn for knowledge on a Web site that bears his name: drkoop.com. Presumably one of the few remaining reliable sources for unbiased truth about life-and-death matters from AIDS to Alzheimer’s.
It seems irreverent then, almost blasphemous, that AOL finds it necessary to lure consumers to this site with a “Win a $10,000 Hawaiian Getaway” banner. Couldn’t it have at least been a homeopathic prize? What’s next? The “Great Gideon’s Giveaway” bible coupon in-packs? How about a deal from your doctor, the “Buy 2, Get 1 Free Triple Bypass Bonanza?”
THE VALUE-ADDLED AWARD. . .
goes to Healthy Choice, which chose to offer consumers a free Year 2000 calendar featuring “$275 in valuable savings” offers. All this for buying three packages of goods? Appetizing idea, but it evokes the old adage, “if it sounds too good to be true, it just may be.” Will consumers deduce that the savings are either on stuff they don’t need, or that they come with strings attached – like buying a helluva lot more Healthy Choice?
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