I look forward to March 17 just to see what promotions Guinness do for St Patrick's Day. The brand is iconic and, along with U2, it is one of Eire's greatest exports. I don't even like the drink but I love its brand image - now that is the power of effective marketing.
This year promises to be a biggie. It would seem to be the 'luck o' the Irish' that this year St Patrick's Day coincides with the 250th anniversary of Guinness first brewing in Dublin. So why invest marketing money in just one day? For 2009 Guinness has stretched their calendar and will be running their promotions for three weeks before St Patrick's Day and three weeks after! A day with 1,008 hours will surely be a celebration to remember.
with for the supermarkets means you can get into the spirit of things wherever you do your drinking.
My local Somerfield didn't have it but I found it eventually, lurking in the dust on the bottom shelf of both Tesco and Asda. The t-shirt offer is restricted to the larger take home packs - which mean plenty of space for the black and gold promotional flash - but, it was a shame not to see any supporting in-store marketing or displays. We know such activity enhances consumer awareness and drives trial from shoppers repertoire browsing the aisle.
So, the new promotion is more of a loyalty reward, talking to an army of stout fans. Branded merchandise can be appealing. A Google search on 'Guinness t-shirt' brings up 61,000 results in just 0.2 seconds. It is also in tune with the current back to basics approach to promotions. In uncertain times people want to know in advance what they are getting, not a one in a million pipedream. So the fact that the reported 'free' t-shirt turned out to be an 'exclusive' t-shirt costing £4.23 was a disappointment.
A small price to pay perhaps but, in the current economic climate shouldn't it really have been free? Especially given that I'd just spent a tenner on the black stuff.
Rating 6 out 10.
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