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Learning from the Threshers promotion

Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 8:57 pm

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Heather Yaxley has blogged about the UK drinks retailer Threshers’ 40% discount voucher that circulated the UK blogosphere recently.

The voucher was originally intended for a limited audience, but spread rapidly around the internet once it had been posted by top UK blogger Hugh McLeod and on (originally) the Stormhoek wine blog (some background here, thanks to David Brain).

At the time the promotion hit there was much speculation about whether it was intended as a viral marketing tool, or was a friends and family promotion that spread beyond its original intended audience.

Stuart Bruce had some pretty strong thoughts about how the promotion reflected on Threshers as a business. Judging by the press release that Heather quotes (can’t find the full version on the Threshers site), I would tend to agree with most of the points Stuart makes.

However my interest in the whole affair is less about Threshers and the commercial aspects of the promotion, and more about how a promotion has gone viral through social media.

The Threshers experience does highlight a few points that marketing and PR people should think about:

You can’t predict what will turn viral and what won’t - it depends on external / environmental factors as well as what you do
You can however create a favourable context for a promotion that makes it more likely to go viral - doing something that has “tell a mate appeal” helps - whether the benefit for the recipient is financial, humourous or just has perceived value (aka gossip)
Always evaluate the impact on your business organisations or reputation if a promotion does go viral - even if the viral effect isn’t what you want, see it as risk analysis

What would be really interesting would be to do some analysis of the routes the message spread along through the blogosphere - it would show how social networks can be pervasive throughout many different groups and geographies in the physical world. It’d also show how quickly the blogosphere picks up on hot topics.

Another facet of this kind of analysis would be looking at the content/tone of the message as it spread - a bit like the Chinese whisper effect. What started off as a price promotion message rapidly distorted in places into a potentially unfavourable discussion about relative pricing between Threshers and its competitors (eg here) - a good example of how messages can evolve and the originator always loses control in the social space.

Tags: discounting, price+promotion, social+media, threshers, viral

Comments on “Learning from the Threshers promotion”

Heather Yaxley
Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Another interesting dimension is the link to the offline word of mouth with this one. As well as being stimulated by traditional print and broadcast media, there was the element of “being in the know”. I heard several of my student groups discuss it. What I noticed is that if you don’t know about something everyone is talking about, you feel a bit out of it - but someone telling you clearly gets a “buzz”. The new person in the WOM chain then needs to find someone else who is not yet aware and tell them to get the same “buzz”. This dimension doesn’t necessarily work so well online, but it is very powerful person to person. What do you think Simon?
simon
Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Yes - there’s definitely a buzz factor there about passing on that kind of message - I suspect it exists online as well as offline, but it’s more visible offline.

People seem to like to be “in the know”, and get an emotional benefit from helping other people to get “in the know” - and that’s where the WOM chain forms from.
Andrew
Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
I have to lay claim to getting the message out and the viral spread going - I blogged about the voucher right after Hugh released the info (the first to do so I think). My post got picked up several totally unrelated (to wine) forums, by google and consequential site visitors just rocketed.

I couldn’t believe the message spread so quickly. I even received an email from my sister giving me a link that actually linked back to my site. She obviously doesn’t read spittoon!

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Simon Wakeman

I've been on the web since 2001 and have been blogging about marketing and public relations since January 2006.

I'm currently Head of Marketing at Medway Council as well as a freelance marketing and PR consultant.

The content and opinions expressed on this website are not endorsed by nor reflect the views of any company or organisation I work with.

I highly recommend Simon. He is an experienced marketing manager with excellent digital channel skills. He thinks strategically, is exceptionally reliable - always delivering on time and with good quality - and is also a good team player…It was great to have him on the team at Egg. Wendy Schratz, Egg

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