2013 certainly wasn’t a great year for the
Co-op. Challenging times were never too far away when it came to a company
boasting ethical banking practice. It’s
an interesting and brave move to highlight some of the issues the bank has
experienced in a print advertisement. But the Brand Avenger wonders if this is
more about rewarding loyal customers or carefully managing consumer perception
through PR?
Don’t get me wrong. There is certainly a
lot that can be said for the decision to advertise in this way. Taking the
decision to publicly put your hands up and admit wrongdoing and lack of
judgment is a big step for any individual to do, let alone a company with
customers and investors. However, there are many ways Co-op could choose to
market this message. Print
advertisements are mass awareness tools. They are not designed to tailor a
message to a select group of consumers. If it was all about rewarding loyalty
surely there are other measures that can be used for this.
Plenty of companies adhere to at least some
of the hints and tips in the above article to reward loyalty. And there are
plenty of companies that do it considerably well. Tesco built a 30% market
share in the UK retail market through utilizing Clubcard data. Google are beginning
to target advertisements through data from G Mail customers. The point is if
you really want to send a message to your loyal customers there are many ways
you can do it better than broadsheet.
Understanding your most valuable customers
to reward loyalty certainly is a lucrative business at the moment as it has for
a number of years. Anyone who has considerable access to data is exploring
options to create loyalty schemes. The benefit of data is that it provides a
realistic view into consumer preferences. It’s this understanding that can
allow companies to target communication, so if you do want to reward your loyal
customers you can identify them to do so. No one is saying Co-op is wrong to
print the advert. There might just be a better way to do that if that was more
important to them than a bit of PR.
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