BUSINESS MONITOR
going to deliver anything like that figure for unprompted brand recall. Add to that the fact that over half of recipients of advertising gifts pass them on to friends or colleagues if they donʼt want them. How rare is it for this to happen with other media!
When asked why they kept advertising gifts respondents uniformly went for ʻusefulnessʼ. In essence this was reflecting the view that youʼve got to wear something/write with something and it may as well be a free something. However, printwear dramatically outperformed other categories of gift in one respect: as many as 40% kept the item because it was attractive. So, memo to designers and creative departments, an important element of making printwear succeed is down to you. I would also add that, in my personal experience, very many printwear items focus on functional rather than design excellence, so there appears to be a real opportunity here to enhance the desirability of printwear and drive that figure of 40% up significantly.
Not every element of a research exercise throws up unalloyed good news. Across the board, people were already conversant with a brand or company before they received and kept a gift – typically 86% for printwear. It might well be argued that this has virtue: people wear brands to show their allegiance. It could also simply reflect how brand owners habitually use printwear. On the other hand it suggests that as a means of introducing brands to new customers printwear isnʼt at its best.
Receiving printwear from a business has a distinctly positive
effect on the customer/supplier relationship. Between 45% and 53% agreed that their view of the supplier was somewhat or significantly enhanced. Which left half of the sample unmoved by this corporate generosity, which I find surprisingly high. By contrast 70% had bought from the supplier since receiving an item of printwear and 24% of those who had not said the gift made them likelier to buy. That grosses up to a good return on investment but it also tells me, again, that printwear is at its best with existing customers. OK, what about value for money? The ASI survey says that printwear delivers opportunities to see at a cost of 0.2 cents in the case of a cap and 0.5 cents for shirts. That is incredibly good value. Prime time TV or newspapers, for instance, come in at 1.9 cents per OTS. Remember that US media is differently structured to ours, but the difference between those figures is dramatic.
Where are the business opportunities in this? First, you might revisit your database of rejected presentations. Armed with the foregoing information, it could well be possible to turn some ʻnoʼsʼ into ʻyesesʼ. Then build the detail into your presentation but be very careful about boring people to tears with all the statistical detail – talking research needs a bit of practice, which I recommend. Focus on the key issues as you see them and offer extra detail if the client wants it. Use the information as an element of your marketing materials, whether advertising, direct mail, email or website. A ʻwow!ʼ number gets attention.
Above all, I think everyone in the UK industry needs to be able to work with a similar survey undertaken here. Spread across the market, as an omnibus survey with a number of major players contributing to the cost, itʼs not expensive. The potential benefits, however, of giving every salesman in the industry an impressive set of data would rapidly pay back the initial cost.
About the author
Paul Clapham is a marketing consultant with more than 25 yearsʼ experience covering a broad range of business sectors and a full spread of marketing disciplines. He works with small, medium and large companies alike to increase their profitability.
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk | 27 |
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60