Promo Review - 7Up's Natural Wonders voucher promotion

by Matt Tabb, promotionsandincentives.co.uk 26-Jun-09, 14:27

Wax Communications managing director Matt Tabb is not a fan of 7-Up's voucher promotion.

I love a good strong brand positioning as much as the next man. We all know the classics - ‘Reassuringly expensive’; ‘The best a man can get’.
They’ve got skin and bone, flesh and blood, they feel real and you can see where they’ve come from and where they are going. Consumers get them and shoppers respond to them because they’re a creative goldmine - the ideas coming flooding out of them. (Does gold flood? I don’t know but it had better do for the purposes of that analogy).

7-Up, one of those brands that is making no fuss about the fact that it is steadily growing its share and doing rather nicely thank you very much, has another strong positioning which is arguably more important in the carbonated drinks sector than anywhere else. Some of us are ‘living on the Coke side of life’ after all.

‘Refreshingly Clear’ feels like one of these strong brand positioning statements that is ripe for creative exploitation above the line, below the line and everywhere else in between. That’s where digital lives, right? Sadly, this promotion has nothing to do with the ‘Refreshingly Clear’ proposition or if it does I couldn’t find the connection. And believe me I looked.
7-Up is offering shoppers the chance to get up to £100 Free Holiday Vouchers from Thomas Cook when they enter a code from the promotional packs on the website. ‘£10 off your holiday with this bottle’ cries the pack flash. Each purchase can get you a £10 voucher to a redeemable maximum of £100 (off a £1200 holiday).
Visiting the website as the pack suggests we are welcomed not by a free holiday vouchers promotion but a whole host of other things designed to, you suspect, ‘facilitate our engagement with the brand’.
Exploring the website a little further and there is loads of stuff going on – opportunities to explore 7-Up World; your own 7-Up-Scope courtesy of Fido Dido; downloadable Fido Dido news and videos. There’s also a promotion to win BigNightsIn in Ibiza – where did that come from? The question remains – why??
Clicking the holiday voucher promotion we discover that it’s called ‘Natural Wonders’ in reference to the 100% natural flavours in 7-Up. Where other parts of the site have high production values and are engaging and fun, this promotional page is functional and dull.
All in all it feels like something that might have been put together without a huge amount of thought for brand insights, shopper insights or much else. How this promotion has slipped through the brand marketing team is anybody’s guess.
I can’t help but feel that this is not only potentially damaging to the brand but a big wasted opportunity. Further establishing 7-Up’s ‘Refreshingly Clear’ credentials in the consumer consciousness would only ever help those improving share figures by differentiating the brand in a cluttered market. This promotion will achieve anything but that.

Agency: Euro RSCG KLP

Promo Score: 2/10