With hundreds of stores and strong promotional offerings, Morrisons makes for a great retail location for brands to host activations such as sampling, pop-ups, and other experiential events as well as for on-pack promotions supported by point-of-sale displays.
According to Access Point UK, a prime promotional site at one of Morrisons’ stores can start at £330 a week.
Moving to on-the-ground insights into the promotional offering and point of sales at Morrisons, there were several types and a wealth of branded displays being put to use in-store observed by the PromoNow Insights Team
Morrisons was home to many floor decals and stickers - this promotion technique was leveraged strongly and a range of more generic marketing messaging could be seen on them, likely to give these decals more longevity and relevancy in store.
Decals like this take up quite a bit of space in the aisle without disrupting shopper journey paths and make for a great way to highlight products and goods that are on-shelf. The format also means that there’s more flexibility in the image and style of the decals and is an opportunity to produce creative displays - whether it’s as a standalone or even as a supporting display or a large brand promotion/campaign.
Morrisons was also home to strong selections of aisle fins and shelf stoppers, making for a great way to capture the attention of shoppers who are passing by - it highlights the products and occasionally, even contained some branded prize promotions that were not accompanied by an on-pack design. For example, Bachelor’s Superman promotion and Mutti’s promotion - both of which will be reviewed later on in this Promotions Seen article.
Following PromoNow Insights’ Promotions Seen article from July to August at Asda and Waitrose, many of the promotions spotted in Morrisons were similarly found at the previously mentioned supermarkets - to learn about these other promotions, consider reading the following and reading the last two articles from the Promotions Seen series:
There were also 15 newly seen promotions, some of which returned from a successful run earlier in the year.
With promotional packs available for purchase at Amazon, ASDA, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury's, TESCO, and Waitrose - shoppers can enter after buying a pack by heading to itsu-noodles-win.co.uk; entering their details; and submitting the unique reference number (URN) found at the bottom of the promotional packs.
With the brand’s origin steeped in Asian inspirations - Itsu worked with Yoshiro, a food entrepreneur to bring about their rice noodles line and the on-pack promotion’s main prize gives customers a chance to go to Japan with a full tour which includes a variety of experiences, but notably, a 3-star Michelin dining experience at RyuGin, Tokyo.
Following the wine brand, Les Dauphins’ very successful ‘Joie De Vivre’ Weekend in Paris Promotion in March 2024, the same promotion returns in Q4, following and capturing that same spirit with the same name and designs. The on-pack promotion leads shoppers to the microsite www.livethedauphinsbistrolife.co.uk.
Nestlé has 2 live promotions across 2 different product groups, one for Nestlé Cereals, and the other for Lactalis Nestlé, a joint venture between Lactalis Group and Nestlé.
For the Lactalis Nestlé promotion, the prize draw is hosted on Nestlé’s promotional microsite at, www.nestle-promotions.co.uk/wincash. It’s the only promotion hosted on the microsite which centres the attention on that prize draw in particular. However, for the Xbox prizes promotion, Nestlé Cereals hosts it on www.nestle-cereals.com/uk/xbox, which is a page under the primary website for Nestlé Cereal where there are also other promotions for their cereal brands.
Whilst the differentiation between Nestlé’s Cereals and Lactalis product lines allows each prize promotion to receive attention individually to highlight the associated brands, Companies with several product lines and brands, don’t be afraid to compile these promotions onto a singular microsite - perhaps even operating the promotional website on a always-on basis.
The benefit of doing so means that shoppers and consumers who visit the site for one promotion will also be exposed to the other promotions by the other brands. The great thing about an always-on microsite is that it’s also helpful in building loyalty and encouraging returning consumers to buy promotional packs and enter these promotions. It’s an easy hub for these shoppers to look for promotions and encourages entry. That being said, the accessibility of these promotions may provoke or enable false claimants - to avoid that, simply use a secure proof of purchase method such as receipt validation.
This past year has seen a trend of increasing in promotions targeting gaming audiences. Nestlé seems to follow this trend with their Nestlé Cereals promotion.
As for Lactalis Nestlé, their Win Cash promotion returns after a successful run in 2023. The promotion uses the barcode for proof of purchase verification and necessitates, like many other promotions, that participants retain their receipt and promotional packaging.
Pet food brands like Bakers and Felix also see a prize promotion in-store. The promotional pack includes a QR code which leads participants to a page on their website, found at the URLs www.purina.co.uk/brands/felix/festive-prize-draw and www.purina.co.uk/brands/bakers/festive-prize-draw.
This promotion uses gamification and animations to engage audiences playfully and parallels the promotional pack. On the inside of the promotional box, Purina includes a game for customers to play with their pets.
However, a major issue of this promotion is the need for short terms and conditions on-pack. The ASA requires significant terms to be listed on all promotional materials for a promotion. The on-pack promotion includes a QR code but does not list any significant conditions like age requirements, region requirements, or open and close dates.
This partnership promotion uses the barcode as the proof of purchase and the on-pack promotion was featured across several brands under Mars Wrigley. The promotional packs lead shoppers to the URL www.mms.com/en-gb/marvel-adventure where consumers can enter the promotion.
Actimel, a yoghurt drink brand under Danone, once again partners with Pokemon for their recurring on-pack promotion, featuring iconic Pokemon illustrations on the Kids Actimel product line.
The promotion follows on from their previous launches and includes even more Pokemon to collect as well as including the Pokemon that shoppers may have already collected in previous runs of the promotion. By scanning a new Pokemon from the bottles of the promotional packs, shoppers can collect a total of 13 Pokemons with special new additions from Scarlet and Violet, Pokemon’s newest main-line game available on the market.
This partnership is a great way to capture the attention of children as well as an effective way to invoke nostalgia with audiences with the long-standing brand.
The format of this promotion requires audiences to continually buy the promotional packs to enter the promotion and is an effective way to gamify by leveraging consumers’ completionist tendencies and behaviours.
The promotional packs lead shoppers to sign up at pokemon.actimel.co.uk or to log in to an account they may have made in previous iterations of the on-pack promotion and keep track of the packs that consumers have previously purchased and scanned.
Lunchbox staple, Petit Filous launches an instant win prize draw with 5,047,649 promotional packs across the UK and ROI and can be found in-store. Targeting their demographic of families, Petit Filous include various family day-out prizes and include 18,500 instant win prizes.
The brand also makes the change from hosting their promotions on their website to a promotional microsite. This change is a great way to enhance the brand’s promotional offering and perhaps alludes to more recurring prize promotional activities from Petit Filous in the near future.
The on-pack promotion by Petit Filous leads shoppers to enter their promotional microsite, winwithpetitsfilous.co.uk. The microsite utilises some simple and effective ‘appear on scroll’ animations.
Birds Eye collaborated with Hasbro Gaming to offer a free copy of selected board games to eligible entrants of the prize promotion. Available as an on-pack promotion in-stores, shoppers can redeem their gift with purchases at www.birdseye-freegame.co.uk/ by buying 4 qualifying products. The promotion uses receipt validation to confirm purchases and the promotional packs are available across all major UK retailers, both online and in-store.
McCain partners with Ninja to bring forward their new promotion to stores on a range of their products. The promotion is both a prize draw and a gift with purchase - participants and customers who make an eligible entry will receive a 20% discount for Nina products and be in for the chance to win a Ninja air fryer.
The promotional packs take shoppers to winmccainninja.com which includes a promotional video. This is another promotion that uses the barcode of the pack as a method of purchase verification - a common trend seen in these promotions.
Whilst this promotion by Mutti is not an on-pack promotion. By leveraging in-store promotional displays, the off-pack promotion was able to have an in-store presence by using point-of-sales materials. By including promotional information through the displays, Mutti was able to get the promotion in front of shoppers. Although, by including an on-pack aspect, not only does it encourage purchase, but carries and continues the promotional journey back to a shopper’s home. The promotional pack also acts as a reminder, without it, customers are more susceptible to forgetting about a promotion.
This promotion by Mutti also includes a promotional website available at winwithmutti.co.uk/enter and uses receipt validation as the method of purchase validation.
Another off-pack promotion seen in the store is Batchelors’ Superman text-to-win promotion, the promotion was spotted on an aisle fin. Much like the Mutti promotion. A great part of including promotional displays in-store is the space.
Pink Lady has been consistently running successful monthly prize draws and they show no signs of stopping their monthly prize promotions. Their promotional packaging retains the same visuals and is a great and long-term cost-effective way of hosting promotions with an always-on format and consistent promotional packaging.
Promotional information is available at pinkladyapples.co.uk/competitions and the promotion for October 2024 was hosted at www.pinkladyapples.co.uk/competitions/october-win and changes each month, refreshed with a brand new promotion and winnable prizes.
Reaching shelves with a simple and engaging spin-to-win promotion, OXO has launched a microsite in accompaniment of the on-pack promotion at www.xoxsharethelove.co.uk. Using a simple on-pack design, this promotion by OXO offers a wide variety of prizes.
The team will continue to monitor brand promotions in various categories and update readers on the latest promotional news.
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If you're interested in running your own promotions, visit promo-now.com/contact to learn how PromoNow can help you create engaging brand activations, or contact one of our PromoNow Experts on +44 (0) 20 380 555 38.
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