As Christmas and the holiday season approaches, this November saw a fair share of seasonal promotions, including both on-pack and off-pack prize promotions, and a wide range of other shopper activations in Sainsbury’s. In this article, we’ll go over brands such as Joy Wine, Tribute, Abbot, Coca-Cola, Ritz, Robinsons, Lindt, Warninks, Westlab, Cadbury, and Extra Gum.
Sainsbury's has point-of-sales displays dotted around the store in various formats and brands. Several FSDUs (free-standing display units) were mostly brand-specific and included brand-personalised designs. These units are usually placed near the end-cap area where there’s most foot traffic and are a way to highlight brands without directly competing with other brands in the aisle.
Sainsbury’s was also home to several floor decals, taking on various designs to capture the attention of passing shoppers. Decals highlight sections of the aisle and encourage customers to pay attention and engage with the section of the aisle highlighted by the decal. On this occasion, there were many decals, some spotted were from Fudco, kefir, Covent Garden Soup Co and more.
The variations of shelf-stoppers, aisle fins, and shelf barkers were great shopper activation tactics to highlight brands or retailer offerings. There were numerous across the store and were often the main way that off-pack promotions were supported in-store, for example, the promotions by Lindt this November, celebrating the brand’s 75th anniversary didn’t feature an on-pack promotion, instead, the activation was simply supported by an aisle fin which lists the promotional details. There was also a promotion by Ferrero Rocher which was off-pack and also used an aisle fin to highlight the prize promotion. However, the issue of using aisle fins to advertise a prize promotion is that shoppers don’t have access to any promotional information once they leave the store unless they take a photo of the in-store promotional display material.
There were many ways that Sainsbury’s used to highlight the goods on the shelf - one such way was via recipe cards which were printed and portable - free for shoppers to take. These recipe cards highlight the branded products featured to inspire shoppers and give them ideas on how to use certain products.
Sainsbury’s also has new shelf barkers to highlight new products - previously, new products simply included ‘NEW’ in the product and price label but adding the slight shelf barkers adds a bit more visual intrigue, making it more obvious that it’s new.
Sainsbury’s also had overhead signs. Often indicating a product sub-category in an aisle but is also occasionally accompanied by branded visuals, the retailer has taken the usual 2-dimensional signage format and made it more engaging and visually interesting - making it a more memorable way to see branded visuals and signage.
There were also a few brand takeovers - including some of Sainsbury’s brand of ‘Taste the Difference’ products and a few Christmas-themed takeovers, for example, Glade, the home fragrance brand had a small takeover where the shelf was fitted with Christmas-themed decor to highlight their holiday-season scented candles.
There were also more general brand takeovers like Crunchy Nut, Ferrero Rocher, and Kinder which were focused more on the brand rather than a promotion or seasonal occasion. Brand takeovers are a reliable way to dictate the visuals surrounding your brand’s products and make your brand stand out among competitors on the shelf.
Many brands, whilst not hosting shopper activations, have seen slight changes to the packaging, favouring a festive re-packaging in line with the season.
The PromoNow Insights team spotted several prize promotions in-store and encountered a few that were no longer live but could still be found on store shelves. There were also several promotions that the team has encountered previously at other retailers - to read about more promotions at other retailers - visit PromoNow’s ‘Insights’ page or read the last two articles from the ‘Promotions Seen’ series:
Morrisons October 2024 | Promotions Seen and Waitrose August-September 2024 | Promotions Seen which goes over, a combined total of 33 promotions in detail.
Some promotions which haven’t been archived on pastpromotions.com but were no longer live include Birdseye x Playmobil’s partnership promotion which was a prize promotion which gave away a ‘Captain’ Playmobil figure with the purchase of 2 packs of mini fish fingers; and Shake Baby Shake’s Glamorous Get-Away promotion - an on-pack promotion exclusive to Sainsbury’s.
To support the new film adaptation of the Broadway musical, Wicked - the 2024 movie release has partnered with Robinsons to launch an on-pack promotion featuring two new squash flavours, ‘Outstandiful Berry’ which featured the Glinda character, played by Ariana Grande on the pack and, ‘Amazafying Citrus Twist’ which features the Elphaba character, played by Cynthia Erivo. This on-pack promotion was also featured on their regular ‘Apple & Blackcurrant’ flavour squash.
This promotion sees an estimated 16.2 million promotional bottles available for purchase and 2001 prizes available to be won.
This promotion is an instant win promotion consisting of various wicked-themed merchandise to win and a headline prize of a family trip to New York City. Following the instant win, there’s a mop-up draw where all unsuccessful entries during the instant win period are automatically rolled over. If, during a winning moment, the prize is not redeemed, the prize will be designated to the next winning moment - and any unclaimed prize will return to the prize pool.
Robinson’s instant win promotion leads shoppers from the on-pack found in stores to their promotional webpage at robinsonssquash.co.uk/campaigns/win-with-wicked. Following the form where entrant submit their details, they’ll also have to include a photo of their receipt, i.e. receipt validation, to prove a valid purchase was made.
Joy Wine reaches shelves with an on-pack promotion on their Spritz product lines. This shopper activation by Joy Wine features a bottleneck cone and leads shoppers to their Instagram page where they can make their entry into the promotion. To do so, participants have to follow the instructions as per Joy Wine’s pinned promotional post which includes following Joy Wine, liking the promotional post, tagging another account, and sharing the post to Instagram stories as seen in the caption of the promotional post.
This kind of promotion encourages social engagement and acquaints audiences with some of the brand’s social media accounts - funnelling participants into a longer-term engagement with the brand.
The Win With Joy promotion takes a prize draw mechanic to determine winners and supports this promotion with additional social media posts. For Joy Wine, using social media to host this promotion directly considers the target audience they want to reach. Joy Wine has made a concerted effort to target a younger Millenial-Gen Z audience since the start, according to Paradise London, who helped launch Joy WIne’s brand - their Head of Creative, Carly Dunne stated, “We wanted to create a brand that truly redefined how Gen-Z feels about wine.”
The main issue with this promotion is the lack of significant terms and conditions included in the promotional materials, this includes both the on-pack and social media posts regarding the prize promotion. Whilst the promotional materials refer audiences to the full terms & conditions in Joy Wine’s Instagram bio, there needs to be a few significant terms in the actual promotional material itself to be considered “legal, decent, honest and truthful”.
This on-pack promotion by Tribute features a microsite at winwithtribute.co.uk. Using URNs as a proof of purchase method and a prize draw mechanic to distribute weekly prizes, wrapping up the prize promotion with a mop-up prize draw.
Tribute states that there are 112,000 promotional packs and 355,000 promotional cards available along with 129 sports-based prizes.
To get a promotional code and enter a prize promotion, would-be participants can get a code either from buying a pint of St Austell Tribute from participating pubs where they’ll get a code from serving staff, or entrants can buy a Tribute 4X500ml can pack from participating retailers where they can find a code in their pack.
Ale brand Abbot, owned by Greene King Brewery has reached shop shelves with their on-pack promotion that offers various home entertainment prizes to be won by participants.
This promotion by Abbot Ale is an instant win promotion using winning moments mechanics to determine winners. From the on-pack, shoppers will be taken to the promotional microsite, under the URL, abbotale.beawinner.uk where they can enter the promotion and be in for the chance to win.
This year, Coca-Cola has implemented quite AI-centric approaches and elements to both their Christmas campaign and promotion. This decision, particularly in their Christmas ad has been met with mixed reviews.
For their ‘Spread the Joy of Christmas' promotion, participants can enter via the app. The promotion utilises winning moments mechanics, with 1,700 prizes available to win.
Accompanying the promotion on the app are a few Christmas-based digital activations. This includes an AI-based quiz that creates a digital snow globe based on the answers to the questions that the AI Santa asks. While this is available on the app, it redirects users to a webpage where the quiz takes place. The web-app gamification is an engaging way to create a fun experience for users. The only concern regarding this promotion is the usage of AGI due to the increasing controversies surrounding it.
This on-pack promotion by Ritz is accompanied by a promotional microsite at ritzreadywhenyouarent.ritzbakery.co.uk which features a barcode-batch code proof of purchase method. For UK entrants, purchase is necessary whilst residents of the Republic of Ireland don’t have to purchase to participate.
Much like the Robinsons x Wicked partnership promotion mentioned previously, this promotion is an instant win wherein prizes not redeemed in a winning moment roll over to the next, meaning there can be multiple prizes awarded within the next winning moment. Across this promotion, there will be 6 winning moments - aside from the grand prize of £10,000, all the prizes include a choice between the cash prize, ranging from £100 - £500 or a ‘Christmas helper’ to help with certain aspects of the holiday season. It’s a fun and playful way to make a promotion more interesting through the prizes.
To celebrate 75 years, Lindt has launched a promotion, just in time for the holiday season as well.
As a well-established chocolate brand, they’ve also launched their advent calendar which involves AR elements behind each door of the day, making for a charming and engaging experience for shoppers every day in December. Evidently, after also having an AR-based advent calendar in Christmas of 2023, they’ve brought back the concept again.
In total, this instant win prize draw promotion has 9,139 prizes to be won and the chance of winning a prize in the instant win portion is 1 in 1,422 across participating retailers. Lindt also has been consistently supporting their campaigns on their social media platforms, especially as Christmas approaches, Lindt has bolstered their efforts to showcase their seasonal offerings and to celebrate 75 years of the brand with a promotion that offers the grand prize winner a visit to the origins of their chocolate brand in Switzerland.
This text-to-win promotion by Warninks is supported by an on-pack bottleneck tag and a few social media posts to give it more digital reach and attention.
Warnink’s activation uses prize draw mechanics to select 105 winners from eligible entries. The Dutch retro liqueur brand embraces its branding and the season with its prize list, offering fully stocked drinks trollies and Warninks-themed Christmas jumpers.
Entry instructions for this promotion include the purchase of a Warninks Original Advocaat and texting 60777, “SNOWBALL [4 last digits of the product barcode]”. Whilst text-to-wins are usually the standard rate and affordable, for shoppers, this may be frustrating as some network contracts don’t include texting special rate numbers which may require additional fees, and can be outside a typical sms bundle.
Westlab launched this partnership prize promotion with Champneys as a touchpoint to support their Dissolve Your Day Away campaign. Westlab’s out-of-home campaign is estimated to reach over 6.5 million impressions, acutely targeting high-traffic city centres in major cities across the UK including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds, and Brighton.
To support its out-of-home campaign, Westlab has also considered digital and social platforms as well and has been working with influencers to improve their social outreach on several platforms including TikTok and Instagram.
Their prize promotion is a weekly prize draw with a 25% off voucher on Champneys Original Stay bookings for all valid entrants. Integrating a gift-with-purchase mechanic like this is a good way to prevent shoppers from being disappointed if they don't win the main portion of the prize promotion, in this case, the prize draw. The promotion is hosted on the promotional microsite, win-westlab-champneys.com where entrants need to enter the last 4 digits of their participating product as the form of proof of purchase method.
Nectar frequently works with brands to offer a ‘branch-off’ of a main promotion the brand may be running. For Cadbury, their partnership promotion with Jet2Holidays is the particular promotion that Nectar adds to which was previously known as the ‘Win A Day To Remember’ promotion, which is no longer live.
In previous Insight visits to Sainsbury’s, there were several Nectar-based promotions - shoppers simply need to scan their Nectar card to enter the promotion which encourages loyalty card sign-ups and continued usage leading to improved shopper loyalty via this shopper activation.
The main concern and possible issue is for the brands - since the process is so seamless and proof of purchase takes place right at the point-of-sale when they check out, retailers usually see more benefit from the promotion than the featured brand. The promotions in these types of shopper activations are usually off-pack and don’t see much out-of-home efforts beyond the retail point which, again, centres the attention onto the retailer rather than the brand.
Found at the URL, yourchewyplace.com/en-gb and offering 2,010 prizes, this prize promotion uses prize draw mechanics across 5 draw periods where there are 402 prizes within each designated period of the promotion available to win.
This prize draw is in support of their Sunday Scaries campaign which highlights the stressful and nervous Sunday dread that some experience before the workweek begins again. With this relatability, they link extra gum as a slight respite to break those nerves and help to face the coming week with confidence and calmness.
This campaign not only included an on-pack prize promotion with several prizes but also had significant social media activity on their platforms including, Instagram and Facebook to promote the campaign.
Keep an eye on the Insights page or follow PromoNow on LinkedIn to get the latest news and stay keyed in on what’s happening in the shopper activations space. We’ll see you in December for the next edition of Promotions Seen.
Visit promo-now.com/contact to learn how PromoNow can help you create engaging brand activations, or contact one of our experts on +44 (0) 20 380 555 38.
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