Views > catalogue review
Targeting ex-servicemen with watches, medals and coins, is Award Classics keeping up with the times?
W
hat do you think when you receive a catalogue
through the post that you’ve never seen before? It looks appealing, I’ll see what’s inside? Nah, not for me thanks,
where’s the recycle bin? Or, maybe I’ll take a look at it later and you put it on the pile with all the others? Award Classics would normally end up in my recycle bin as I’m so far removed from its target market that I shouldn’t come up on its prospecting list. That attitude would clearly make a terribly boring article so I persevered and took a look inside.
So what’s it all about? Award Classics is a 48-page A5 catalogue. I was
looking at its 2011 brochure and the company is celebrating its 25th anniversary. According to its welcome message, over the last 25 years, more than £1 million has been raised for charities and veterans through the sales of commemorative medals and other associated items. This is an amazing statement and as a newcomer I wanted to know more about this charitable cause. I searched the catalogue and couldn’t find anything—a huge opportunity lost. I eventually found the information on the website (
www.awardmedals.com) and discovered that more than £500,000 has been donated to The British Legion through the sale of the National Service medal. The appeal of the catalogue is to ex-
servicemen and women, with a massive male bias. I would also think that the customer’s average age is mid-70s. This is certainly a niche publication and my first thought is how long can it carry on existing for? While we are humbled by the young men and women currently risking their lives on our behalf at war, they are unlikely to want to buy from Award Classics—Classics being one giveaway and the other being the fact that one of the best-selling items is the National Service medal, which in order to qualify, you must have served National Service between 1939 and 1960.
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Creative Ultimately, some of the key things that sell
products in a catalogue—apart from the product, price and targeting—are the various creative aspects. So let’s consider Award Classics’ creativity.
Photography—gives a reader the initial impression of the products he is buying and the brand he is buying from. The front page (above) is crowded with eight different images showing a variety of products available in the catalogue. The appeal is to both men and women. Interestingly, there isn’t a medal in sight. I see poppies and personalised products. There’s a toothpick holder with the name Sandra on it and there is a watch with the emblem of an army unit standing proud in its face. And that’s where I’m confused—why is it called Award Classics? Award tells
Direct Commerce Catalogue e-business
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Classically trained
By Rob Galkoff
me that I’ve won something or I’ve worked hard to achieve my goal; Classics tells me that they are products from the past, maybe something I can’t buy anywhere else—clearly it will be difficult to buy some of these items elsewhere. The rest of the photography is very clear, which is really important for a dense catalogue in A5. It’s not uncommon to have eight pictures on a page and there is one page, selling lapel badges, where there are 30 images. Okay, back to the photography. It’s all very crisp and there isn’t a problem seeing the clarity of the items being sold. Although the pages are dense, it’s still easy to see the detail. This is helped as almost everything is on a white background. The designers have used boxing and drop shadows, which would look out of place in most catalogues, but do seem to work in a “classic” setting.
Descriptions—help tell the story. As you’d expect from a brochure aimed at the more mature customer, the descriptions do, in reasonable detail, explain the products. They even go into the detail, for example, of telling you that the Brass WWI Trench Lighter doesn’t have the petrol supplied.
I’m sure you’ll agree with me that each catalogue has eight “hot pages”—two covers, inside front, inside back and centre pages. Let’s look at them individually. I’ve already mentioned the front cover. It’s crowded and in my opinion doesn’t work. There’s so much information on there that I lose the fact that you get a free “Keep Calm and Carry On Tea Towel worth £5.95 with every order”. Is the catalogue aimed at men, women or both?
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