Maurice the Marketing Manager’s Success with Promotional USBs

Having blown 20% of his marketing budget on a mail drop of plastic bottles containing promotional USBs without authorisation Maurice couldn’t sleep after they had been posted.  Although he had no real doubt that his “Message in a Bottle” campaign would produce good results, there is always a nagging doubt that something might go wrong for any marketing manager when embarking on something new and innovative.

The other thing that bothered Maurice was that if he got the response that he was hoping for, it would mean that the telesales department would be taking a high volume of calls and since Gerald had delivered all ofhis Global Challenge drop cards on the same day that the bottles had gone out,Gerald would most definitely be hovering around that department to measure the success of his own campaign.

The drop cards and the bottles with the promotional USBs inside had gone out on a Wednesday so there would be a time lapse because the bottles had been posted through the Post Office,whereas the drop cards had been manually posted through doors.  On Thursday morning Gerald had alerted the telesales team that they could expect a high volume of calls.  By midday no calls had been received and Gerald went out to lunch.  Maurice took this opportunity of calling a telesales team meeting, since the 200 strong team was his responsibility, and he told them that if they received any calls regarding a message in a bottle they would very likely be asked to book inspection trips by the callers.  Since the company presentation was on the USBs only people who were genuinely interested in what the company had to offer would call. The team should tell each caller that the USBs were theirs to keep as promotional gifts from the company. He also asked them to be discreet about it since it was a surprise new campaign that Gerald knew nothing about.  Loyal to Maurice, the team agreed because they weren’t too keen on Gerald anyway.

On Friday there were still no calls and although he didn’t show it, Maurice was sure that Gerald must be worried.  Gerald was going to Tenerife that weekend so Maurice agreed to come in to monitor what was happening in the telesales department and keep him posted by email. Giving up his weekend didn’t matter to Maurice because he was positive that by Saturday or Sunday calls would be coming in for his own campaign.

On Saturday at 11 am the phones began to ring and they continued to ring throughout Sunday.  The callers were impressed by the bottles and the presentation on the promotional USBs and wanted to know more about “holiday ownership”.  The fact that they were allowed to keep the USBs as promotional gifts to use as they pleased further impressed them. Over that weekend more than 1,000 calls were handled and 400 inspection trips booked.

 Late on Sunday evening one call came in from someone who had received one of Gerald’s dropcards.  They wanted to know what timeshare was.  When it was explained, the caller very politely said that he lived in a council house and was unemployed hence he would never have enough money to purchase timeshare no matter how much he might want to.  Maurice couldn’t believe that Gerald had not chosen his drop areas more intelligently.

Gerald decided to spend a week in Tenerife and Maurice’s stress level went down.  Apparently there was a problem with the OPCs (Offsite Property Consultants) that needed sorting out.  The OPC team would trawl the beaches and busy areas of the resort handing out promotional gifts and vouchers for the water park if couples agreed to sit through 2 hours of timeshare presentation.  They were complaining that the promotional gifts were “rubbish” and they needed some higher quality giveaways such as promotional umbrellas that would act as parasols or possibly some promotional beach bags or towels.

At the end of the week 3,500 calls had been taken in response to the Message in a Bottle campaign. Even Maurice’s marketing agency friend was surprised that he had got a7% response from what effectively was a direct mail drop and that he had converted 40% of the calls into inspection trips.  The Global Challenge drop cards had one call in response, just one and that was only to ask what timeshare was.

The American Project Manager, Robert, had been in the office all week and was astounded by the sheer volume of calls and bookings and thought that it had been in response to Gerald’s campaign.  Maurice felt it was time to own up and he sat down with the project manager and told him that he was very sorry for having risked so much on the campaign without authorisation but he knew that Gerald would never agree to it.  He explained that he felt that his creativity was being stifled by not having control of the mail programs and in a moment of madness he had followed through with a novel idea albeit that it was well thought out.

Robert was a friendly kind of guy and told Maurice not to worry.  If sales were converted from the inspection trips that were booked he could rely on a new company car, a bonus and an increase in salary, not to mention promotion.

“But what about Gerald” Maurice asked “after all he is my boss and I shouldn’t really be speaking directly to you?”

“Leave that with me” Robert said, patting Maurice on the back.

Find out what happens next week when Gerald returns………….