Posts about Promotions

Parking

Win $1000 from Safeway; walkers, bikers not eligible

by David Alpert   •   September 15, 2009 11:23 am

Safeway and a local radio station are giving away $1000 to 14 people. All you have to do is put a sticker in your car's windshield; they'll randomly pick out cars parked in the parking lots of Safeway stores to be the winners.

But wait! My local Safeway has no parking lot. A number of Safeways in DC have no parking lots. Those people are out of luck. Same if you walk to the store. I wonder what will happen if I put the sticker on my folding cart? What if someone puts the sticker on their bicycle and parks it at the store's rack? Somehow I doubt anyone will win that way.

Safeway is a national chain, and has run this promotion elsewhere, like San Jose, California. As with the free gas promotion, commenters will surely point out that, as a private corporation, they're entitled to give away items to whatever group of customers they want. Still, it would be really nice if their corporate marketing department recognized that their customers don't all drive, and their stores aren't all auto-oriented.

If the central office has these blinders when designing promotions, what other opportunities to improve the customer experience (and make more money) are they missing at urban stores?

Public Spaces

Green companies' marketers miss the point

by David Alpert   •   August 10, 2009 1:11 pm

The Spectrum Condominium in downtown Falls Church markets itself as "a vibrant new eco-friendly condominium." They tout the benefits of living in a walkable downtown with good bus service and near Metro:

Living in the center of the city between East and West Falls Church Metro stops and along GEORGE, the clean diesel local bus line, will make getting around a breeze—all while reducing traffic, emissions and pollution. ... So come home to Spectrum where you will find a greener, healthier and more exciting way to live.

The site also touts the building's green roof and eco-friendly appliances. Someone in their marketing department didn't get the memo, however. An ad in the Post offers not a free month's rent, or a free Metro/GEORGE pass or Zipcar membership, but extra free parking. We're not just talking about one free space but a second one for a two-bedroom.

Now that green living is trendy, developers are touting environmentally friendly features in many new buildings. That's great. But if the marketers then just default to the same gas-guzzling promotions that assume that more cars and more driving is always a draw, it undermines not only their message but the purpose behind it. Many of those two-bedrooms will go to couples who want a spare room, or families with babies, and they don't necessarily need two cars even in Falls Church.

The same car-centric marketing blindness underlay Safeway's recent "free gas" promotion. Despite a strong commitment to purchasing renewable energy, Safeway teamed up with BP to give free gas cards earlier this year. Even in stores like the one on 17th Street in Dupont Circle, which has no parking and to which a very small percentage of shoppers drive, cashiers would always ask "do you want free gas?" upon checkout, large "free gas" banners hung around the store, and at one point the cashiers even all wore "free gas" t-shirts. Sorry, my folding grocery cart doesn't need a fill-up, and neither does the bike ridden by the shopper next to me. Free food might have been nice, though, to help power those shoppers on their walk or ride home.