Ideally a gift card giveaway should work like this: fill out form (either on paper or online), perform requested action and get a gift card in a timely manner without hassle. It would even be better if they gave cash. 🙂
This is how Mazda did it recently:
– Sent me an email in early March inviting me to test drive a Mazda and get a $25 gift card as I had previously signed up for promotions as some of the new models were of interest
– Printed off pdf file
– Filled out form
– Went to Mazda dealer
– Found salesperson who didn’t know about the promotion
– Had manager figure out the details
– Test drove a Mazda
– Mailed in form
– After 8 weeks card had not arrived and wrote blog post about it
– A week later, the card arrives in the mail and I pick it up as I leave the apartment
– Since it has no sticker on the card saying it’s not active, I proceed to try to use it at a gas station and the guy tells me it’s not activated
– Went to myecount.com and filled out a form that was just way too long (see below)
– Put in mazda as my password for secret questions – for $25 this just is not necessary
– Unchecked default boxes to get updates from myecount.com
– Finally spent card
– Wrote post on this non-optimal customer experience in terms of duplicate data entry, time, cost and user utility
This is a great example of how not to run a promotion, not exactly a good idea when you are trying to get someone to build trust in your brand for a 5 figure purchase.
See the full size of this form here.
So at last you got that gift card, but still not satisfied with it. This promotion is suppose to give positive effect and but instead, customers got displeased with this deal from Mazda, maker of quality Mazda timing belt.
The funny thing is, corporately the “cost” of incentive promotions like these is discounted by the expected rate of redemption. The goal of the promotion is not to create long-term brand equity; its to drive a fast spike of sales activity to clear out inventory or meet regional targets. Hence, the more painful the incentive is to redeem, the more attractive it is to business decision-makers who see promotional cost go down with no impact on traffic (as dissonance is all post test-drive).
Its painfully short sighted but consistent with much of the promotional thinking I’ve observed.
[…] David Dalka and Bogus Mazda Promotions […]
That sounds horrendous!