How can you possibly know that 3-for-1s make people spend money that they can't afford? What is your data source?
I have a bit of information on this that I’m happy to share as a marketing person who looks at promotional data (till point transactions) for a living including multibuys.
The first point I would like to make is that multibuys are always about creating a larger volume of sale and therefore income.
In retailing we look at how effective a promotion is by measuring 3 things (in the main)
1) did it increase overall revenue via increased spend per customer
2) did it attract new customers that weren’t shopping there before
3) did it steal money that would otherwise be spent at a competitor or from another category (say within the same store from within a different fixture)
multi-buys focus on volume of sale and are more successful on the first and third category, so in this instance taking money away from other researchers (like the Biobank) or planned donations for other good causes by existing doners and (2) hardly at all.
To be effective at (2) you would definitely not choose a multibuy mechanic since others are way more effective (loyalty based schemes and general awareness incentives etc to draw people in).
These are all well known facts that most marketing professionals (including those running OmFs publicity machine) would know...it’s not specialist information.
It’s also fairly well known that those that are less well off tend to donate more to charities than those that are well off.
So in the case of this particular campaign it is a cynical attempt to target poorer people who are already donating and asking them to donate more and divert more of their charity giving to OMF rather than anywhere else. Add to this the vulnerable nature of the target group, a dose of overpromising in their marketing comms, together with opacity in where the money is going and you have a pretty distasteful picture.
I suspect that this particular campaign will lead to less donations going to places like the Biobank or Parkinson’s research or children in need rather than introducing more people to ME research. Although a different category, People’s attitudes don’t change much when you look at parting them from their cash...most people have a limit to what they spend their money on when budgets are limited and the pool of money is limited.
By choosing a multibuy mechanic, OMF are deliberately pulling on existing customers and milking them for more as Wonko has pointed out.
I recognise this is pouring cold water on people’s enthusiasm but I would urge people to consider what results have OMF given us so far vs other researchers or charities they might choose to donate their money to? Do we need to give them more money at the moment at all until they have shown us something for past donations?
I have read the omf blurb btw and I’m still no wiser as to why they need additional funding to top up their existing funds?
As a full disclosure, I don’t have an axe to grind against the OMF, I have donated to them in the past, bought Unrest and supported various ME Action intitatives, am a signed up member of the MEA, buy my Xmas cards from ME Research and donate to the Biobank and also the additional cost of getting to Caroline to give my blood for research.
However I’m not one to get sucked into the ra ra of fund raising and just give without properly considering what use my money is going to be put to. As a marketeer I also have a few standards I like to uphold.
