Maurice realised that the success of the Message in a Bottle
campaign with the promotional USB FlashDrives inside had been a team effort and he spent the following week
travelling around the UK visiting the company’s 3 other offices and booked
himself on a flight to Tenerife over the weekend.
He took all the marketing staff out for breakfast from each
office and thanked them for the work they had done in making the campaign a
success. For those telesales operators
whose calls had converted to inspection trips he gave them a £50 bonus and for
those whose inspection trips had converted to sales, £150.
In Tenerife he rewarded the marketing team with an impromptu
day off and a lavish meal at one of the island’s best restaurants. Since the sales personnel had made the sales,
Maurice made a note to tell Gerald that he should reward them in some way,
since Gerald has responsibility for them.
Producing promotional
products samples that he had received from Zest Promotional, Maurice had
meetings with all members of his team, both in Tenerife and the UK, to
demonstrate that these products were of a much higher quality than had been
used previously and that he would make sure that they had sufficient quantities
to help them in their marketing efforts, matching each product to the specific
campaigns they were working on.
For the Tenerife team he had decided on promotional umbrellas which would act as great parasols in the sun
and also work well in the UK for all those rainy days. In addition he provided them with messages in
bottles with promotional USB Flash Drives containing the company
presentation to give out to people along the beaches and around the
resorts. He figured that if they could
not be persuaded to visit the resorts whilst on holiday, they could at least
take home something useful to look at when they got home.
Also in Tenerife Maurice supplied some quality promotional T Shirts with the company
logo printed on them together with promotional
baseball caps and environmentally friendly promotional bags for the beach made from recycled denim. The baseball caps were useful to protect
heads in the sun and everybody would use the promotional bags on holiday.
In the UK, he upgraded the cheap promotional pens with higher quality models that were made to
last. Although they weren’t expensive,
they looked it and Maurice felt sure that anyone would like the look and feel
of the pens.
He ordered some promotional golf balls for a campaign he was running with golf clubs and also some
different promotional golf umbrellas
that subtly displayed the company’s logo without the bright colours that were
more appropriate in Tenerife.
For exhibition gifts he ordered more promotional bags Promotional Bags, promotional
key rings, promotional USB Flash Drives and for clients who booked
inspection trips at the stand, fleeces and more promotional umbrellas.
All marketing personnel were highly motivated by the time he
had left them and Maurice looked forward to seeing the results of his efforts
during the next month.
When he returned to his office his new car was parked in the
company car park, a midnight blue Toyota Supra Hybrid. Many of the office staff had been out
admiring it during the course of the day he learned, when he spoke to his
secretary, and Gerald had a face like thunder.
Almost as soon as Maurice sat down at his desk, Gerald
appeared in his office.
“I hope you’ve had a great time swanning around the country
and over in Tenerife” he said “I want to see your accounts as soon as possible
to make sure you are not spending too much money on promotional gifts.”
Maurice took this opportunity of telling Gerald about the
bonuses he had given the various marketing teams and also mentioned that he
felt Gerald should compensate the sales team in Tenerife for their efforts.
“What? You’re having
a laugh surely. They get paid good
salaries and commissions for what they do, I’m not giving them any extra and
you must be made of money with your new budget if you can just throw it away.”
Gerald jeered. “I want to see exactly
what you have spent and if it is too much, you can expect reprisals when I
report it to the directors.”
Maurice tried to explain that motivation was an integral
part of keeping the workforce happy and he expected that they would produce
excellent results over the next few weeks.
“Yeah, right,” sneered Gerald, “we’ll see about that.”
“I’d also like to talk about some new ideas for direct mail
campaigns, if you have the time,” said Maurice.
“No, I haven’t got time now and it seems you have enough to
get on with anyway,” Gerald replied.
“Yes, I do have a lot on but we need all of the marketing
programs working in tandem, so could I just have a look at what you have
planned and then I can see where I might be able to fit some of my ideas in”.
“You will not look at anything of mine and nor will you even
think about changing suppliers, like you have with promotional products. We
have a direct mailing company that we use and I am very happy with them so keep
your hands off my files,” Gerald said rather dismissively.
When Gerald had gone Maurice called his secretary, Sue, to
come in. He asked her if she could wait
until Gerald was out and copy his direct mail files, keeping the matter
confidential. She said that she could.
A few hours later, Sue delivered the copied files and
Maurice took them home. Sitting in his
study, Maurice read through the files and was astonished at the amount of money
being spent on direct mail with an obscure company bases in Wales. Having searched for them in Google he found
that their main thrust of business was actually in promotional products and corporate gifts with direct mail appearing to be more of a side line. However, they were being paid over £100,000
each and every month which seemed strange considering that their promotional products were cheap and
tacky and there seemed to be so little direct mail activity.
Having spent considerable time, reading and re-reading the
files, a suspicion developed and grew in Maurice’s mind and eventually the
penny dropped!
Find out what Maurice discovered next week.
