In Summary...

After blogging for an entire semester about coupons, promotions and sweepstakes, I noticed a great deal of trends and patterns. Initially when I selected this topic I was nervous about finding articles to blog about. I knew that there were a tremendous amount of coupons, promotions and sweepstakes out there but I wasn’t sure how much they were discussed on the Internet. Initially I just searched google for articles to write about, but eventually I came across promomagazine.com, which was an excellent source for me. I also found many other blogs besides mine, which write about the same topic; duct tape marketing blog for example. After finding sources, I was able to easily blog about the subject twice a week. After writing about so many different promotions, some obvious trends became apparent to me. The first thing I noticed was that many promotions include a grand prize involving meeting a famous person or winning a vacation relating to whatever is being promoted. Also, the way that people can enter contests was similar on many occasions. It is becoming more and more common for people to enter sweepstakes via the Internet. Lastly, when the holiday season began to approach it was near impossible for me to find a promotion that did not have a holiday theme. Evidently, promotions take great advantage of the time of year in which they are taking place.

The most common grand prize for the promotions I wrote about was a vacation or opportunity to meet a celebrity or professional athlete. Promotions do an excellent job attracting their target market. For example, the Gillette Video Contest I wrote about had a grand prize of meeting a professional football player. This directly targeted the appropriate market as men who use Gillette razors and men who are interested in football are most likely one in the same. I did notice that since not all people would want to meet a professional football player, Gillette is limiting its response level to men, but I think this is necessary as they are the main consumers of the product. Essentially, product promoters realize that it is not necessary to target secondary markets with their promotions, as secondary markets are solely consumers, not people who would be likely to participate in a promotion related to the product. In the case of Gillette, and secondary market may be wives purchasing razors for their husbands. It is unnecessary for Gillette to gear their promotion towards this secondary market as woman are most likely not as interested in meeting a professional football player as men.

I noticed the same trend with promotions that included a grand prize of a trip – they were very focused on their target market. For example, the Home Depot promotion included a grand prize of a trip to the Super Bowl and Modell’s contest had a grand prize of a trip to baseball spring training. People who typically shop in Home Depot are older men; the same people who would love a trip to the Super Bowl. Those who shop at Modell’s (a sporting goods store) would definitely welcome a trip to baseball spring training. Once again these promotions do not target any secondary markets but the promoters have realized it is unnecessary and not worth the money to do so.

Another trend that came to my attention when blogging about contests was the method consumers use to enter into the contests. Almost every contest I wrote about can be entered via the Internet. McDonald’s monopoly, the Dairy Queen Promotion and the NBAstore.com promotion (just to name a few) all have a specific Web site to enter their promotions. It is the age of the Internet and this was made clear by the promotions I read about. Even coupons are now electronic. This is why it was not difficult at all for me to find promotions being discussed on the Internet and I was not surprised when I came across a number of blogs out there that discuss promotions, coupons or sweepstakes.

The last thing that was impossible not to notice was the plethora of holiday themed promotions. I was definitely expecting this but I was not expecting it to be a struggle to find a non-holiday themed promotion during this time. I think it is a great tactic for promotions to incorporate the holiday theme, as people will be more inclined to participate because the promotions will play off their mood – being in the holiday spirit. Some of the holiday promotions were very fun, such as the KFC one where people compete for the best photo or video of holiday decorations.

I really enjoyed blogging about coupons, promotions and sweepstakes this semester, as it was a very interesting topic. I think that as the semester went on I became more comfortable with adding personality to my blog and getting away from just summarizing the articles. I would definitely like to continue this blog in the future or create another one, working on establishing my voice.