The line above the masthead of the Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper today sets newsagents up for a rugged day once their allotment of fre. Tear off the token and hand it to your newsagent it says. The colleague who alerted me to this promotion this morning received one DVD for each newspaper. No backup stock for the customers coming from supermarkets, petrol outlets and convenience stores looking for their DVD.
So, what does the newsagent do? Give out one DVD for each newspaper sold? This would see them abused by customers who have walked all the way to their shop to collect the DVD. Or, do they give our DVDs to every newsagent who presents with a coupon. This would leave them without stock for existing customers and subject to certain abuse.
This is a good promotion, certain to sell newspapers. The problem is the management of the DVD. If you want newsagents to be the collection point then supply enough stock to enable them to represent your brand professionally. One DVD per newspaper supplied to the newsagent is not enough in many situations for a popular free DVD.
We say this ourselves with the Herald Sun give aways last Saturday and Sunday. The abuse from customers ran most of the week. We were damaged and the publisher was damaged.
This is not rocket science. Publishers and retail newsagents could work together to make these promotions work. If only publishers would talk with us before setting us up for retail rage.
I think as a collective we do not provide enough feedback for them to change their ways. They will say they had very few complaints and that the promotion was therefore a success.
G`day Mark, we too have had too many bad experiences with CD/DVD giveaways. The under supply sets up us for a tirade of abuse both from regular customers and also people we have not seen before. The regular customer can eventually see and understand the situation that the paper has put us in however when a new face comes in looking for the promotional item we feel that they may then be a customer we will never see again because of thier bad experience and that`s what hurts most. I recall the National Geographic as a classic example of major under supply and could forecast the public response so i rang QNP and asked wether or not i had to participate? The response was they had not been asked this before but if i did not participate in this promotion i would probaly not recieve any future promotions. We relented and took up the offer with the understanding i got some extra DVD`s however 240 sunday papers far outweighed 60 DVD`s. You say the publisher and the newsagent are damaged in these situations however we are at the frontline of the abuse and when the customer rings the paper to complain they are told that it was the agents fault for not ordering enough stock. As i am a retail only agent (but with direct contact to QNP) we must seriously consider wether the damage done by these promotions is too great to continue with them!
To your comment Sarah i think we agents have probaly given up complaining because we just don`t get the results when we do offer our feedback.
Cheers
Al
Al……yep, most of us are tired of taking the time to give feedback only to be ignored….what is the point?
Why don’t newsagents ring their respective Associations and aske them to represent them with this complaint?
Most Association staff are not newsagents and are not aware of the latest problem nor the magnitude of it..
I found as Association CEO if I received complaints that representing them they were genuinely
interested.
You can only try.
Graeme,
I can assure you that the associations know. I have also been there when the publisher told us how they see it. In a nutshell they will not change their model in the short term.
Then surely that is grounds for action by a relevant govt department? the publisher is making an offer that they know from past history that they do not have sufficient resources to adequately provide for?
False and misleading advertising?
Graeme,
I think NANA went down that track or at least obtained advice on it?
I believe the term “while stocks last” covers the publisher from a legal standpoint.
The most popular and poorly resourced of these promotiins damage newsagents first and publishers second. Suppliers who care about their reputation and relationships will work co-operatively to find a solution. others will keep doing what they are doing, unfortunately.
you and I have been newsagent for years and these kind of promotions have been repeated month in month out and nothing have EVER change. will they change? NO.
when customers abuse us for those promo dvd , we give them and encourage them to call 92883800 and i told them they will post those dvd for free:). let them share those abuses too.