This, just now, in Coles…
Shame on everyone at News Corp. who participated in making this deal happen. This weekend of all weekends to do this – it is an attack on newsagents.
This, just now, in Coles…
Shame on everyone at News Corp. who participated in making this deal happen. This weekend of all weekends to do this – it is an attack on newsagents.
NOT SUPRISED
But they will get away with it because no one will take them on and call this for what it is.
The folks at News appear to have loosened up on their controls around this type promotion. I recall hearing in the past that publishers were not allowed to communicate their offers using words like “free” or “Complimentary” in reference to the paper. Clearly it is an activity designed purely to boost their Circulation.
Perhaps the Audit Bureau would have an issue with this promotion.
I get the feeling setting up promotions with Coles would be a lot more cost and time effective, and have a much better chance of hitting budget for bother parties. Instead of playing the victim (which does nothing for your business) wouldn’t it make more sense to be planning a promo to run with of your own?
You will probably tell me I’m wrong, but reading through interactions on this blog I get the feeling running any promotion through the channel is going to be a challenge. The uplift from the promo is eroded by exceptions like agencies refusing to accept card payments, non compliance because collecting coupons is too hard, some people just hate News so they refuse to participate, and things like owners complaining that the government/customers/supplier should give them more money because they’re martyrs selling X for no profit for years.
Effective promos slow the circ decay rate… without that you’d be a lot closer to not having to worry about any of this ever again….
No Neil, you’re not wrong. In fact you’re 100% correct.
100 years ago when Newspaper Banners meant something and publishers were desperate to get their product as widely distributed as they could, signing up agents and then subsidising costs to have their product delivered to peoples homes made sense.
In todays media landscape, none of that is relevant any longer. My gut feel is that everyone from publishers, distributors, and retailers is doing their chocolates on newspapers.
In a retail environment where majors continue to exercise what is effectively anti trust (how can one company sell liquor, fuel, poker machines, hardware, groceries etc etc etc) both retailers and suppliers in small independent businesses have to be agile innovative and completely switched on to consumer trends. Lets face it, most high value brands are now locking in their bricks and mortar retail presence by opening their own branded stores. Coca Cola learnt the hard way about trying to sell strong brands through the supermarket channel.
I suspect, all things considered, newspapers either already are, or will be shortly, a supermarket product.
This offer really worked in SA on Saturday.
Purchased $26.50 of items at Coles Port Adelaide, asked for my “free” newspaper, what free newspaper was the checkout operators response.
Front Desk assistant gave me a paper and explained not all checkout operators were told of the offer.
Did you grab a paper and take it to the checkout John?
The instructions look pretty clear, it would have scanned for free if you spent over $20 (which a normal customer might not know, but being generally reasonable they don’t expect it to magically appear)