Why Do Consumers Respond To Promotional Advertising?

For the past 50 years, PPAI (Promotional Products Association International) has been conducting independent research related to the use, effectiveness and relationship of promotional branding to the consumer. At Promotional Partners we value the research provided to our industry as education for our team and knowledge for our clients.

A recent feature by PPAI contributor Moumita Das, titled Unlocking The What Behind The Buy- New Research Reveals How Brand Agencies Value Promotional Products- revealed some interesting data related to the perceptions of promotional products by brands and agencies.The article also explored how promotional products most effective to address common business goals, strategies to advertising and overall positioning the brand with consumers. We extracted sections of this article and diagrams in the PPAI publication to share with you. 

Das article states,  “Like most industries, the promotional products industry has its own set of terms and definitions that are used describe the diverse scope of roles that promotional products fulfill. What that looks like to buyers will help translate how brands and agencies view promotional products and the value they serve today. Both brands and agencies share similar views on what promotional products mean to them, with samples leading the list with 57 percent of buyers, on average (Figure 5). The quality (73%) and type of promotional product (63%) were leading factors influencing purchases among buyers. 

“Overall, 87 percent of buyers credit promotional products with contributing to the success in reaching their marketing goals, and found promotional products have the ability to regularly engage with their customers (54%) in a way that’s distinctive to the medium (51%). Buyers and agencies also acknowledged the cost-effective benefits of promotional product, such as their flexibility to easily fit budget parameters (36%) and the bonus exposure provided with no extra charge (27%). Ninety-six percent of buyers believe promotional products are an effective form of advertising, with 36 percent indicating extreme effectiveness, 48 percent moderately effective and 12 percent slightly effective. Buyers commonly use promotional products to increase brand awareness (63%) and recognition (61%); however, many found promotional products most effective in strategies involving a direct response, such as sparking word-of mouth (90%), prompting reviews (91%) and even gaining new customers (89%) as shown in Figure 9. “

The research outlined in this publication challenges, “Can we do more?” Das sites “recently data trackers have come under fire for being too costly, slow and for delivering unreliable data—and while technology to track product usage is still in its early stages and therefore expensive, 62 percent of brands said they would invest between six and 20 percent more in their overall budget if and when a tracking technology was offered to them (Figure 10). Until then, tracking methods can still be offered during an existing stage in the buying process and that sits at the heart of what makes a promotional product promotional. The message that links your client to their desired audience offers a powerful opportunity to track ROI. Including a call to action in your clients’ design, such as a hashtag, custom website address, vanity toll-free numbers or QR codes, offers tangible evidence to track campaign results. Remaining competitive requires the ability to make constant course corrections and staying ahead of this developing trend, and providing fresh new ways to track and measure their campaign. If we don’t offer ways to give them data, they will buy an advertising medium that will.”

Increasingly our sales team at Promotional Partners is seeing the ability to add smart data into promotional brand selections, yet few clients are asking for it to be part of their imprint space. When we suggest adding track-able data, the most consistent responses we receive are, "my business does not have a system or dedicated individual to monitor that type of data collection" or "we aren't consistently using any form of call to action with a promotional item."

After reading this type of report, we wonder how many of our clients will be interested in adding data to their imprint space. Are you?

 

Sources:

Moumita Das is market research coordinator at PPAI. Ask for a complete copy of this report from your brand consultant

Find the complete results from the 2017 Buyer Study and more exclusive PPAI Research by visiting www. ppai.org/research.