This is an interesting and timely question that came out of a discussion between Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson on the For Immediate Release, Podcast #197. Neville brought up the viral storm  created recently when Threshers’ (a UK wine……

The campaign hasn’t performed as well as other viral campaigns, and not to the level Thresher intended. Possibly due to the source location for the campaign….does you average wine drinker read/write blogs??? So, bring in Plan B and make it look like a mistake and the world and its dog will come rushing in, and at the very least Threshers have had some huge TV/press exposure.

Or

It was always going to be Plan B, viral marketing works, but its audience is limited and in most cases young, which isn’t exactly the target market for alcohol consumption. This means you need a secondary action to widen its publication, eg “Oops look what we did”

Either way Threshers have had an extremely cheap campaign in terms of cost and most likely it will not cost them anymore than they were already giving away. The existing 3 for 2 offer had some drawbacks, it was for 3 of the same bottle. Which at present buying time of year isn’t the best………..one bottle for Mum, one for Dad and one for me????? I think not

With the 40% offer they are hoping to secure all of our alcohol purchase rather than just the bulk

Well done Threshers………………………

Price discount promotions are old fare. The fact that buying market share this way is common practice among FMCG companies is often used as blatant proof of brand managers lack of creativity and desperation. Newspapers, especially in London, especially Murdoch titles, love trying to buy market share as well.

“Buy me, I am cheap” is hardly a great brand positioning statement — unless you want to be perceived as such. These campaigns train the customers to hunt for promotions.

I don’t see anything in this campaign designed to attract the customer a second time to Threshers. There is no “loyalty” element. Of course, Threshers can be hoping that the coupon-wielding customer will have such a phenomenal shopping experience, be so awe-struck by the range of wines and quality of the service staff that they will become regulars… that’s clutching at straws.

No. I think this is a bad campaign; evidence of lack of creativity and desperation.

Something more 2.0 would bake-in a social marketing angle. For example that you could get 40% off on the wine that I (a friend) suggested… that they had some kind of counter where I could only make 10 such “invites” (make it feel exclusive)…. Yeah, I love it: Thresher would have a website where I (a registered user (would purchase be required)) could select wines from a list (maybe a limited range of sponsored wines) and, upon providing an email address, a unique pdf coupong would be created and mailed to my friend.

I’m obviously on top of the game, then.
Yes - I would say great marketing promotion, even if it is partially by accident. But isn’t that the characteristic of a good viral?

PS Unwins closed a year ago.

If this has a very good outcome, I’d say Thresher will be quite pleased. Their name is all over the internet, and in much of the UK national press and broadcast media during the past few days.

Unlikely to be a budget big enough to buy that kind of broad brand-awareness result.

Still, you’re right that if the UK digerati are as mobile as they might be, it could put unusual demands on their supply-chain. But again, I suspect that it being Xmas, they’re under unusual demand anyway.

I went in to my local Thresher store today and bought 6 bottles of wine, two of which were Stormhoek wines. Redeemed my coupon. Instead of paying £42, I paid £25 and saved £17, Can’t complain about that!