Promotional Marketing and Free Gifts

As a consumer, I love a free gift, and always remember the companies that give them to me. I am not alone in this regard. I can honestly tell you that at least every couple of months, my wife takes me to the mall, and we hit up all the major retailers that have sent out their free gift coupons. Victoria Secret sends out a card for a free pair of panties, and Bath and Body Works sends a coupon for a free bottle of lotion, if you spend over 10 dollars.

Rewarding loyal customers with free gifts is a standard aspect of marketing and brand building. It makes your customer feel like you care and that your brand is their friend. It provides them with a story to share about your business. A story that compliments your brand, and establishes your worldview. This is a great way to build a brand relationship, but what happens when your business can’t come through with its promise?

As an example, my wife and I recently bit the bullet and purchased a new car. Our children are getting older, and we think in the future we may have another kid, so we decide to get a mini-van. We had looked around at different dealers (actually my wife did the whole of the research, she deserves all the credit), and decide to go with a local, family owned Honda dealer, Huey’s Honda. While there were some short comings in getting the car, overall we were pleased with their service, and happy with our choice to buy from them. One of the perks of buying through them, was that you get a lifetime of free car washes. Not a bad deal, and a great low cost promotion to keep me loyal and coming into the dealership on a regular basis.

So, the other day, my wife and I are having lunch and decide to stop by the dealership to have our car cleaned. We had done it once before, and it took about 5 minutes, and we were back on the road. Obviously, it’s not the most stellar car wash, but it’s free and quick and the car looked a lot better for it. So we drive up to the dealership, walk in and hand our keys to the receptionist and ask for the car wash. She quickly yells after a detail worker that had just run in, but I see him walk down a hall and into a room and shut the door. She graciously apologizes, and states that it will be just a moment, and she pages another detail crew member to come get our keys. 10 minutes and several intercom pages later, I stand up and tell her we are going to leave. She is quick to apologize and hands us our keys. As my wife and I climb into the car, I notice a detail crew member walking slowly towards the building, finishing up his lunch. I can see him looking at us, knowing that we are the car that needs the wash, but instead of rushing over to try and salvage any bad feelings, he continues to the front doors and heads inside. As I pull away I see him standing at the receptionist desk looking out the windows at us. I assumed that he was thinking how he couldn’t have timed that better.

Suddenly, something that was a free gift, that I had not asked for, but was given (and had been talked up during the purchasing process), to me as a sign of appreciation for my business, has turned into a blemish on this companies image. Personally, I am dissatisfied with my service, and that the people responsible for providing me with this gift, couldn’t careless that I wasted my time. I respect the business less than I had before.

I can honestly say, I never would have felt this way if it weren’t for the free gift.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 4:19 pm and is filed under St. Louis Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.