In-pack and on-pack glassware premiums: a valuable hedge against price erosion
 
Would you have guessed? The average length of stay of a consumer in the beverage section of a supermarket is three minutes. Or 180 seconds, to make it sound better. Three minutes may seem like a long time, especially when waiting for a bus in pouring rain. However, three minutes can also be terribly short. For example, if you have to make up your mind as to which bottle of wine to buy. The fact that the right choice of wine usually stands first on any shopping list has a simple reason: Our “average customer” is a lady. Today, as before, women are more likely to do the family shopping than men. Let’s call them by their name: It’s “Ms Next Door” and her female friends. Ms Next Door allows herself up to 180 seconds to choose a bottle of wine. Or a bottle of sparkling wine or champagne. Good things like wine take time. All the more so because Ms Next Door intends to enjoy the delicious bottle in good company with her friends, which is, without doubt, a worthy occasion for a very “special drop”.

The time left in her budget for HIM and his skat friends may amount to about 20 seconds. 20 seconds  sufficient time to make a quick stop by the spirits section on her way to the checkout counter, sufficient time for her because all she has to do is grab a bottle of his favourite drink and put it in the shopping cart. There is a reasonable probability that her way to the checkout counter will be lined by sizeable displays featuring on-pack promotions of German and international spirits brands which will literally stand in her way. Ms Next Door will be spoilt for choice as to which bottle to buy: Should she opt in favour of a bottle with a CD on-pack, or for a bottle carrying such an amazingly beautiful glass, she wonders. She will start weighing up: The bottle will be emptied by HIM and his “brothers in gaming”. But the glass   the glass would be hers. Not a bad deal at all. So, without further ado, she will pick the bottle with the glass and, delighted at her clever choice, she will proceed to the checkout counter.
 
In this or similar ways, millions of purchase decisions are made day by day in front of German beverage shelves. Smart brand strategists working for the spirits industry have found the perfect answer to these “questions of choice”: on- or in-pack promotions by Rastal. With this smart marketing tool, you will never again want to enter the fray of fierce price competition.
 
Added value instead of “price off” strategies
 
Promotional campaigns are designed to foster and reward customer loyalty. So far the theory. In practical terms, however, the word “promotion” in today’s world of trade and commerce is often spelt “P R I C E   P R O M O T I O N". The thing is that the one has nothing to do with the other. Price promotions spark suspicion in consumers, making them believe that purchasing a brand beverage “the usual way", i.e. at times when no campaigns are taking place, means wasting their money. Moreover, price promotions give the completely wrong impression that manufacturer margins must be large enough to allow substantial price reductions. Instead of building brand loyalty, promotions centred around the aspect of price achieve just the opposite effect: The latest research clearly shows that frequent price promotions weaken brand loyalty. Price campaigns may lead to short-term "quantity effects”, what they fail to achieve, however, is long-term customer retention. Price promotions turn formerly convinced premium consumers into a throng of mere bargain hunters.
 
Admittedly, in times of progressing “discounterisation”, as witnessed in the food retail trade, and declining consumption of alcoholic beverages, beverage brands are increasingly prone to price promotions. And this holds true not only for spirits brands; beer and water brands are caught in the same dilemma. The consequences are well known: What is cheap today will be cheaper tomorrow  until a point is reached where brand credibility has vanished without trace. To say nothing of manufacturer margins and profits.
 
Whoever is looking for an opportunity to escape the downward spiral of low-price warfare, is well advised to opt for on-packs or in-packs with glasses by Rastal. Whether your glass is sitting safe and secure on a bottle’s neck (on-pack) or whether it is packed in a box together with its bottle (in-pack): promotions featuring glasses by Rastal are a most appropriate means of providing consumers with added value without sacrificing manufacturer benefits. Or, in other words: On-pack and in-pack promotions made of “glass and more” will help you build better brand value and customer loyalty without losing your margin. In contrast to the usual low-price campaigns, the premiums accompanying on-pack or in-pack promotions are not just “given away for nothing”. And this is where the key to success lies.
 
Together they are “premium”
 
Being a clever housewife, Ms Next Door does, of course, not find fault with special offers. Before picking an item from the shelf, she always checks the arithmetic: "... that's 8, carry 1 …”. However, when her eye falls on a glass sitting pertly on top of a bottle and whose look appeals to her, she will not hesitate to allow mental arithmetic to take a “time out”. On-pack and in-pack glasses featuring a unique decoration are a perfect synthesis of purchase incentive and packaging technology, with the glass being the crowning centrepiece. Drinking glasses by Rastal add a “special touch” to any brand. They ensure direct, personal and reliable brand communication, providing consumers with a memorable “hands-on experience". Bottles can be dressed up with a broad range of eye-catchers: It’s the concept that counts. And it is at this point where the imagination and creative inspiration of the designers in charge comes into play. Rastal designers are said to be able to develop drinking glasses and brand products in tandem with matching packaging solutions, the sight of which will make Ms Next Door gladly forget about the tiresome price issue and will cause her to “save the saving” for something else.
 
For beverage brands with a distinctive image, glassware design by Rastal has already for a long time been firmly integrated into all sorts of sales promotion activities. After all, it is the glass which creates the most tangible tie, a close relationship, between consumers and their brands, all the more so in the case of Exclusive Glasses. Decades of experience and expertise have established Rastal as an international leader in the development and design of Exclusive Glasses. Building on the insight that each and every beverage brand should be endowed with an identity and outward appearance of its own, Rastal creates Exclusive Glasses that not only represent the very essence of a given brand, but which can also be readily employed for on-pack promotions.
 
The appeal of on-packs or in-packs featuring Exclusive Glasses by Rastal is enhanced even further by the fact that in many cases consumers have already “come into contact” with the Exclusive Glass pertaining to their favourite drink in hospitality environments. Brand-conscious consumers have well internalised the credo that perfect brand staging requires two things, namely the beverage in tandem with its Exclusive Glass created by Rastal.
 
If such style-conscious brand enjoyment is to be repeated at home, the respective Exclusive Glasses must be commercially available. Consumer markets frequently offer Exclusive Glasses separately, as items in their own right. However, the best method to ignite a collecting passion in consumers is and remains an on-pack or in-pack promotional campaign with Exclusive Glasses designed by Rastal. The Exclusive Glasses featured for on-pack or in-pack promotions are more than just “giveaways” accompanying successful FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) campaigns. Rather, “piggyback solutions” developed by Rastal stand the arithmetic of Ms Next Door on its head. 1 + 1 = 3 is the "piggyback" equation because an Exclusive Glass plus the respective beverage bottle create an added value reflected in higher prices, enhanced value attributions, increased brand awareness (“visibility”) as well as stronger purchasing propensity of consumers.
 
Bring your top stars to the limelight: Brand staging puts bulk displays in the shade

 

All these aspects speak in favour of on-pack or in-pack promotions featuring drinking glasses as a “top act”. Because unlike so-called “gimmicks” or “giveaways”, beverages marketed in tandem with their glasses are a unique combination sending out a clear message: "Look at us! Together we are premium." Since these items do not belong to the category of “fun giveaways” that are often geared to a specific age group, but rather come as products in their own right which are apparently committed to the same quality standards as the beverage itself, glass on-packs and in-packs appeal to all age groups. Whether “put on stage” by means of shelves or displays, glass on-packs and in-packs are pleasing eye-catchers and thus difficult to overlook  in contrast to bottles without glasses. If you have ever felt the visual magic of a well-conceived glass on-pack, you may well know the seductive power of impulse purchases. Ms Next Door, therefore, will not long hesitate. Without further ado, she will call herself to order: “Alright then, I’ll take two. Otherwise it will take too long until the ‘six-pack' is complete!"
 
No matter the time of year, there is always an occasion for a promotional campaign: Carnival, Easter, Advent, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, the beginning of summer and sporting events are all regularly recurring and thus well-established time frames for promotional campaigns. Resourceful strategists will even devise additional customised events in order to project their brand into the limelight it deserves. Rastal as a competent partner to  companies in the beverage sector provides extensive and valuable support by helping develop and implement well-conceived and thus attention-grabbing on-pack or in-pack brand promotions. Marketing solutions by Rastal ensure perfect brand staging at the point of sale that will stand out against “the mass” with its inevitable, unconscious implications of “Cheap!” Therefore, the following principle should apply: Promotions featuring drinking glasses are to strengthen brand loyalty without slipping into the trap of “cheapness”. If you follow this principle, Ms Next Door will never again push her shopping cart along the aisles without stopping by at your premium displays enhanced by “the glass and more”.