CHICAGO -- Customizing promotions to specific retail accounts can pay off for manufacturers.
rketing agency, demonstrated in a presentation at a conference here. It was sponsored by The Marketing Institute, a division of the Institute for International Research, New York. For example, one of MGR's health and beauty care clients, SmithKline Beecham Corp., Pittsburgh, wanted to gain support for a multiple-brand promotion for symptom-driven cough/cold products, such as Contac and Sucrets.
A menu program for retail accounts to choose from was developed, Aaro explained, but the major drug accounts wanted to customize it. For example, Revco wanted its name on the tearpad, Thrifty wanted to change the offer on a major chainwide sweepstakes, and Osco wanted to change the offer, put its name on the tearpad and run it in an ad.
The account-planning process allowed custom changes to be incorporated during the menu programs, which proved to be a cost-effective approach, he said.
For Revco, its logo was stripped onto the tearpad during printing of the standard tearpads for a minimal upcharge. All the Revco stores participated in the tearpad refund program.
For Thrifty, a different heading was stripped onto the riser card and on the entry form. This customization resulted in displays in all the stores, with about $200,000 in sales and a payback of 10 to one for displayed products vs. the cost to display there, Aaro said.
The customization for Osco involved stripping in a different offer and converting the tearpad to two-color from four-color. The offer was tied in to a major feature. This generated a payback of nine to one, display vs. ad, Aaro said. Aaro used another example with SmithKline Beecham, which has the No. 3 toothpaste in its category with Aquafresh. The company introduced eight stockkeeping units this summer. The goal was to get a trial and increase merchandising support in eight drug chains and three mass merchandisers, Aaro said.
"We ended up getting participation with 70% of the drug chains, 70% of the mass merchandisers and 70% of the grocery accounts contacted," Aaro said.
"SmithKline Beecham achieved all its new distribution objectives. This is a difficult category to get into. Ten of the 11 accounts participated. We ran an average of two programs per account. We achieved over $4 million in incremental volume," he said.
