Page 116 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

54 WHET THE CUSTOMER’S
APPETITE

Giving people a free sample or a free trial is an old ploy, but in
some cases it is difficult to do without giving away a great deal more
than was intended: for example, offering a free trial of a credit
rating service might give the potential customer everything he or
she wanted to know, without the need to subscribe permanently to
the service.

Finding a way of making people want the product without at the
same time giving away the main advantage is a difficult tightrope
act to carry out.

The idea

When Oasis (the pop band) wanted to promote their Heathen
Chemistry album, they followed the usual route of seeking airtime
on radio, of advertising in music enthusiast magazines, and so forth:
obviously these routes are used by every other band, so they needed
something else to attract the attention of their target audience.

The band arranged to give away encrypted CDs with four tracks
from the album, attached to the Sunday Times newspaper. The CDs
could only be played four times before they automatically wiped
themselves clean, so the recipients could not replay the tracks
without buying the whole album. From the sale of each album,
50p was donated to the Prince’s Trust, a charity for helping young
people.

This unique approach enables people to try the album without
gaining possession of its key benefits, thus compelling them to
make a full purchase.

100 GREAT MARKETING IDEAS • 107