Endoh’s Dungeon

I thought it would have been the last that I see from Courts regarding this particular appreciation campaign. It must have been either yesterday or the day before that a new placard was sent to me. Strangely, I didn’t see it until this morning. Anyway, the title screamed that the offer has since been extended to 31st July.

I should have guessed…

I am a little puzzled by Courts marketing team, frankly speaking. Firstly, the initial marketing collateral was sent to me (and I assumed many others too) more than a month late. If that was lousy time-planning on their part, figure this. An extension notice that arrived in my mailbox two weeks after the GST is officially raised. I see nothing but just sheer lateness in everything. Is this a deliberate move?

All of us see all kinds of promotions getting extended here and there, I would have thought we have grown immune to it. Retailers are trying their best to present the generousity of their business, but hey… business is about profits, not charity. While a retailer may try hard enough to put up an impressive front, certain things will contradict their motives. What does a retailer expect a customer to feel or forsee to gain in promotions that are either overdue, or late?

Just to get straight to the point, this is what I will do.

Given this second mail, I cannot be sure if this is pure delay tactics or simply lacking in time management of their campaign. However, it does give the impression that everything was done last-minute and hastily rushed out to take advantage of the situation. I cannot be sure, this is only my guess because even if I were to ask myself realistically, I don’t see any major gains with a deliberate delayed campaign. Assuming the promotion is made known earlier, shoppers are given more time to shop and the discounts would have served their purpose. So what if I received this placard just a few days ago? Two weeks have passed since GST has been raised, the whole key in catching that marketing loophole is - extended from when? Do you consider a period of unknown time to have satisfy the “informing of customers”? Or an extension of a promotion is only profitable when customers get to know about it?

Something marketers should always take note, a promotion is not a promotion UNLESS your target audiences know about it. This is what we meant by delivering the message to our target audiences. Just think about the 4P in the marketing mix; Product, Price, Place, Promotion. Or think Advertising, the clarity of the intended message must be carefully targeted to impact your target customers. If your customers do not know about the promotion or even know about it late, half your marketing efforts have already gone down the drain. In fact, many marketers tend to confuse marketing and sales. Maybe I will find some time to talk about the differences between marketing and sales. They are essentially two different stages in a campaign.

Is it deliberate? Is it just case of bad timing? Or is this a spark of the minute idea that Courts’ marketers hastily put something up? I don’t know, and I don’t think that is important anymore. The timing of their first wave and second waves are just way out…

And Courts is talking about Customers APPRECIATION?