CANADA DRY USES RADIO IN ACCOUNT-SPECIFIC ADS

JUDY CORCORAN

BOSTON -- An account-specific radio promotion for Cadbury Schweppes Canada Dry Ginger Ale combined an enter-to-win and listen-to-win sweepstakes with in-store displays in 10 Eastern markets. The 10-week promotion, organized by Target Marketing & Promotions here, ended Dec. 31. It involved local radio spots in New York; Baltimore; Washington; Richmond, Va.; Philadelphia; Louisville, Ky.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Greenville, S.C., and Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C. Some of the participating retailers included Waldbaum's, Pathmark, Mel Markets, A&P, Food Emporium, Edwards, Grand Union, ShopRite and King Kullen. The Canada Dry Ginger Ale promotion derived its theme from the product's "out and out" image, according to Target Marketing. Sweepstakes prizes include trips to the Split Rock resort in the Pocono Mountains, trips to Montreal and tickets to local ski resorts. The radio spots ran on several stations in each market. They alternated store tags, contest rules and prizes.

Target Marketing specializes in integrated promotions for grocery products. "We consider ourselves a promotion agency, not a media buying agency, although we do buy our own media," said Tom Schneider, TMP president. "Everything we touch," he said, "we leverage into a partnership. All of our radio spots are promotional spots that drive people to retailers to sign up and win." TMP receives a tremendous amount of partnership goods in return for mentions in all the radio spots, Schneider said.

Schneider said that many of the goods TMP receives are turned into internal incentives for the trade and distributors. "If our client wants to award some of these prizes to distributors who hit their numbers, they can," he said. The retail accounts, in exchange for a one-week rotation tag on the radio spots, agree to set up a display in-store. "We like our promotions to be account specific because they're so effective," said Schneider. "It's sort of woven into our fabric because it's a great way to use your media."

He claimed that his company has developed a way to measure the effectiveness of radio promotions through Arbitron, the standard measure of the industry. "We measure out to at least twice as much radio as money can buy." He mentioned that the New York promotion involved $300,000 worth of radio time and $300,000 worth of merchandise.

"Some people have called us the hamburger helper of marketing agencies," he said. "We do a great job on the partner end, and then we stretch the media dollars and drive incentives off of the same prizes. When you're done, you've really come up with a great integrated package."