The IPM are delighted to launch the 2023 IPM Awards, celebrating the success, innovation and creativity that is carried out right across the promotional marketing industry.

This is your chance to recognise the outstanding campaigns and showcase the achievements delivered by you and your team. Find out more.

This year the IPM celebrates its 90th year, and we look forward to getting together with you all to celebrate all the incredible campaigns that have been delivered.

This year, our categories reflect our long-standing IPM awards with the reintroduction of sectors and our member community groups across the promotional marketing spectrum.

Don’t delay, you have until 31st March for the Early Bird Deadline. For more information on this year’s awards including pricing and eligibility criteria, please visit our website or click here to register on our awards platform and start your entry.

We wish you all much success in this year’s IPM Awards.

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Marc Rigby of MRM looks at the relevance of Promotional Marketing to today’s marketing industry

Part of my misspent youth was dedicated to undertaking a degree in Marketing. How shiny and new it all felt back then in the 1980s, with brand spend all hovering above and below some imaginary line.

I chose below the line. Cash, holidays and cars. Neck labels, fix-a-forms and scratch panels. Free flights, treasure hunts and soft toy Labradors. Activity so impactful in its imagination and creativity that sometimes it didn’t even need a press release to make the national news.

Fast forward 18 years into the new millennium and the chance to assess where the trends of integration, omnichannel and the like have taken the old trouper that is Promotional Marketing. And no better place to do that than at the 2018 IPM awards, particularly as MRM was a sponsor this year.

But first, some context. To paraphrase Lord Black of Brentwood in his excellent introductory speech at the Awards, “I have never known such a time of change and flux.”

An economy showing marginal growth with Brexit concerns and growing inflationary pressures, dictatorial government legislation and public health concerns.

After a decade of dominant price promotion activity there is evidence of the usurping impact that EDLP pricing is having in the shape of the sales strategies of German retailers Aldi and Lidl.

And look at the fact that retailers such as Asda, Ikea, Next et al chose to step away from the bun fight that is Black Friday. It is low prices not short term price offers that is winning the promotional day.

So, can added value promotions still have a role to play in building the all-too-important brand equity?

Promotional Marketing as a marketing multiplier

What this year’s entrants consistently demonstrated is that their campaigns defined promotion as less about a proven collection of techniques to drive sales and more about the role Promotional Marketing can play when it has the chance to contribute to the marketing multiplier effect that boosts a campaign’s impact and how its customers really begin to engage with it.

What do I mean by that last statement? That campaigns truly reach another level when a great idea is founded in a brand truth and delivered to a consumer as a total brand experience.

Take the immense piece of work that is Lucozade Energy and TBK Group’s ‘Unstoppable Bottle’ – a multi award winner at the 2018 IPM Awards (see the picture above). Product packaging uniquely adapted to the activity. Check. Product sampling. Check. Relevance of activity to brand proposition. Check. Amplification of activity with advertising and social media. Check. Tangible motivating reward. Check. Add the fact that the activation was the first of its kind and it was delivered flawlessly achieving outstanding results, and you have a deserved winner. And, in striking a sensory, emotional, relevant and behavioural chord with the audience, it truly delivered a brand experience.

Clearly, promotional success need not be as reliant on retail presence as it once was. Packaging still remains a primary medium to communicate through, even if the power of the retailer’s own brand limits the opportunities to stand out in store. Getting listings and facings is a hard and often expensive challenge for any underperforming brand. Today’s marketer has a number of channels to drive communication of a promotion. Digital activity can undoubtedly help to build your story and promote the activity to a targeted audience. Hell, it even serves as an ideal place to store your terms and conditions. But it can also very quickly undermine your best efforts if your activity doesn’t pass the scrutiny of your consumers.

Not that this was a problem for another award winner. Nestlé KitKat and ZEAL Creative’s personalised KitKat packs proved how the public’s appetite for personalisation can be integrated into an established brand’s packaging.

So I hope I am not alone in concluding from this year’s crop of winners that, within the armoury of marketers, Promotional Marketing remains a trusted and effective weapon. And whilst the idea at the heart of any marketing campaign should be embedded in the brand proposition, creativity can only truly thrive with the support and expertise of practitioners who understand the importance of planning, insight and how best to manipulate the Promotional tools; not to merely drive sales but also deliver brand experiences that challenge and engage the audiences they seek to reach.

At MRM, we like to think we are defined by our services but measured by our results.  That is a statement that should be a maxim for our whole industry.

Marc Rigby is Managing Director of Multi Resource Marketing Ltd (MRM), a marketing services agency celebrating its 25^th anniversary this summer. MRM is a sponsor of the IPM Awards 2018.

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Marketing distribution specialist mda has been acquired by European logistics business Staci for an undisclosed sum. Staci says the acquisition creates the first pan-European marketing logistics business for brands and retailers.

Creating, storing, distributing and activating point of sale and marketing materials for the world’s biggest brands including Heineken, Coca-Cola, Mars, Unilever, Diageo and Mercedes-Benz, mda, which recently celebrated 30 years of business, becomes part of a £250m Europe-wide fulfilment group with operations across France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, BeNeLux and now the UK.

Wayne Chapman, mda Managing Director, says: “This is genuinely fantastic news for our clients and teams and we’re extremely excited about the years ahead. We’ve operated from the UK for 30 years, but in the last 24 months we’ve seen clients’ desire to operate facilities in multiple European territories under a single contract significantly increase.”

Mda, which currently has turnover of £5m a year, has 350 employees at five fulfilment centres across the UK.

Staci is the European leader in the B2B retail logistics segment for a large group of networks: retail, GMS and GSS, oil companies, agribusiness, hotel and restaurant chains, banks, insurance companies, operators telephone companies, car manufacturers, the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry and the public sector.

Prior to the mda acquisition, Staci had 35 sites in Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands with a workforce of 1,550 employees.

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There’s been a lot of negative comment about the Winning Moments mechanic now being used in many prize promotions. But is the problem with the mechanic, or how promotions are being explained to consumers, asks Steve Berry of Emirat

Following some negative press about the overall odds of winning and the number of actual winners in some recent prize promotions, frozen food company McCain has become the latest brand to announce that they won’t be running any more Winning Moments-style prize promotions in the future.

The complaints about Winning Moments, and the strategic reaction by many promoters to them, lead many to ask if this reflects how all consumers feel. Is everyone losing faith in Winning Moments? I would argue not.

The average consumer would more than likely take a promotion in the spirit it was created – as a bit of fun. I am certain that McCain in no way set out to do anything other than inspire and delight their consumers with a fun and attractive promotion.

I don’t, in truth, know the facts – I didn’t work on this promotion – but I would guess McCain, working within a set budget, used fixed fee or promotional insurance to stretch that budget and provide the opportunity to win as many prizes as possible. Their intent ultimately would have been to make it more exciting, more appealing and to get a better response.

Compliance with the CAP Code

If this promotion was set up and implemented in accordance with the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) codes, the rules which govern all marketing activity in the UK, which I imagine it was, then all the prizes which the public were told could be won were in fact available to be won.

Therefore, the fact remains, had more people played, more prizes would have been won.

Let’s not forget, the whole idea of a promotion is as an enticement to purchase, the end goal being that you purchase the product, not enter a promotion. Furthermore, not all promotions guarantee a reward in exchange for this purchase, and they are not intended to. It’s a bonus, an add-on, a supplement to the product which is, most importantly, what you are actually buying!

The bag of chips cost no more than usual, therefore it hasn’t cost anything to enter this promotion. What then is there to feel disgruntled about? It’s not like buying a lottery ticket where you are actually paying to enter a competition. But again, with this too, you are only given a chance to win and no guarantees are given.

So why then, in the context of a promotion, which you are not paying to enter, does the idea that someone ‘could’ win seem to be an alienating concept all of a sudden?

I have read a lot of criticism and cries for promotional prizes to be ‘guaranteed’; but before promoters react, I would ask that they put this into context. While a promotion might guarantee prizes and therefore winners, it doesn’t dictate any differential in the ultimate appeal or number of participants that engage in a promotion. More winners, yes. More entries? Sadly, no.

Having a small number of guaranteed prizes can actually harm your promotion and objectives. This is due to the fact that the average consumer will perceive that, with only a few prizes to be won, they have very little chance of winning and so won’t bother to take part.

Worse still, they may not even buy the product, or in the frequency you are looking for, which is the whole reasoning for running the promotion in the first place!

The prizes are then only won by those that bother to take part, who perhaps aren’t the target audience that the promotion is aimed at.

I have seen for myself the same pool of participants winning prizes repeatedly during a promotion and in lots of cases, across a variety of promotions. These people are naturally the first to criticise a promotion with longer odds and no guaranteed winners because, frankly, they aren’t winning.

Your average consumer probably wouldn’t have the same view and it’s a shame for any brand to shy away from a Winning Moments promotion because of the view of a minority.

Winning Moments – indeed, all prize promotions with a ‘chance’ element – have their benefits. They allow for more inspiring and exciting promotions, which we all know have a far greater marketing impact, reach and ROI than your average free prize draw. They can help facilitate the creative, fun and fabulous promotions that we love to see on the shelves, by making them affordable and exciting at the same time. I don’t want to see promotional marketing like this disappear, especially when it really doesn’t have to.

In all fairness, though, there are perhaps two sides to this argument. You could argue that if you usually buy a different brand and made a buying choice solely based on the ‘chance’ to win something, do you deserve better odds? Maybe a guaranteed reward? I can certainly see the point to this argument.

Striking a happy medium

Perhaps, then, there has to be a balance with these things, a way to offer a fantastic promotion and keep the odds reasonable; by being just that.

Here, in my humble opinion, is how to go about striking that balance:

• Create a good ratio of packs to wins – 100m packs and a few prizes that ‘could’ be won isn’t a good ratio to go on. Decide what would be reasonable for your customers, what you’d expect to see as a consumer and go with that.
• Guarantee some of the prizes – put aside some of the budget to ensure you have winners.
• Use the other part of the budget to cover additional prizes and have ‘winning opportunities’. This will allow for the budget to go further and the promotion be as exciting as you’d like it to be!
• Mop Up – have a prize draw after the close of the promotion to compensate for late entries and entrants who’ve entered during the promotion and not won.
• Limit the number of winning individuals – so that the same people don’t get all the prizes and it’s fair for everyone.
• Don’t scrimp! The promotional website shouldn’t cost more than the promotional prizes! If it does, you probably need to look at it again.
• Be upfront. If you’re clear about the prizes and the odds, the choice for consumers is easy – buy and take part or don’t. It’s not about misleading anyone, ever!
• Choose your words carefully. Transparency is key; ‘’to be won’’ isn’t the same as ‘’could be won’’. Make sure you’re using language that can’t be misunderstood.

Steve Berry is managing director of fixed fee and promotional risk management company EMIRAT.

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Marketing services group Omnicom has created a new ‘Global Experiential Practice Group’, a network consisting of its market-leading experiential agencies, including Auditoire and Luxury Makers of France, DOIT! from Germany, GMR Marketing of the US, and, from the UK, TRO.

The group said in a statement that Omnicom Experiential Group “will form a borderless experiential network… Building upon Omnicom’s core growth strategies, the Experiential Group is focused on: strengthening new business development; creating customized teams for clients; better targeting of internal investments; improving expertise and knowledge across management teams; and creating more opportunities for our employees. Agencies within the Practice Area will continue to retain their strong individual brands and cultures.”

Cameron Parsons, CEO of GMR Marketing, observes: “Omnicom Experiential Group provides us an opportunity to combine the strengths of our individual agencies to create an unmatched global offering for today’s leading brands. We know that marketing is changing at the speed of culture. Now, more than ever, creating a truly meaningful connection and building consumer trust through experiences gives us the power to change how people think, feel and behave.”

Omnicom Experiential Group will include 1,600 practitioners across 29 offices in 16 countries with leadership in five global hubs: London, Milwaukee, Paris, Sao Paulo and Shanghai. The agencies making up the group create over 65,000 activations every year, driving more than a billion engagements (digital and physical).

Omnicom says that with one in three Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) saying they will set aside between 21% and 50% of their budgets for experiential elements (2017 Freeman Global Brand Experience Study), its new network is poised to capitalize on the sector’s growth.

Omnicom Experiential Group is led by a board consisting of the founding members, Cameron Parsons, CEO, GMR Marketing, Cyril Giorgini, CEO, Auditoire and Michael Wyrley-Birch, CEO, TRO Group.

“We all know that more and more people seek experiences over material objects. Omnicom Experiential Group gives us a global toolbox of capabilities and talent to bring brand experiences to life anywhere, anytime.” adds Cyril Giorgini, CEO of Auditoire. “For global brands with a need to deliver global strategies with local insight, there is no better solution.”

Michael Wyrley-Birch, CEO, TRO Group, says: “In the current environment where fast-changing technology and customer requirements are driving change, speed is a key competitive edge for our clients. As a borderless agency, we can develop global strategies and creative that are relevant and implemented by our local experts at the speed that keeps our clients ahead of the competition.”

Omnicom Group (www.omnicomgroup.com) is a leading global marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and numerous specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to over 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries.

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The Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM) has announced the shortlist for The IPM Awards 2018, the promotional marketing industry’s most prestigious recognition programme.

Richard Pink, Head of Awards at the IPM, says: “We’re delighted to reveal The IPM Awards 2018 entries which have been selected by our first stage judging panels as being worthy of consideration for a Bronze, Silver or Gold trophy, or for one of our three special Awards. Our awards programme showcase the latest and greatest campaigns and work being delivered within the promotional marketing industry. We’re looking for those exceptional promotional campaigns that have displayed effectiveness, creativity and innovation in their field. We want to recognise and reward the blood, sweat and tears that go into delivering the best that promotional marketing has to offer.”

The IPM Awards 2018 shortlist – which can be seen in full on the IPM website – shows the breadth of mechanics, techniques and channels covered by promotional marketing, including classic promotions, shopper marketing, experiential marketing, partnership marketing, digital, and motivation and incentives.

The winners of the coveted IPM Awards – Bronze, Silver, Gold and the Specials, the Brand Owner of the Year, the Agency of the Year and the Grand Prix, for the best campaign of 2018 – will be revealed at The Awards Gala Dinner on 14th June 2018 at the London Hilton, Park Lane. Table Bookings are now open for what will be the biggest networking event for the promotional marketing industry in 2018.

The IPM Awards are the premier recognition platform for the UK promotional marketing industry and have been going for more than 40 years. The Headline Sponsor for the IPM Awards 2018 is Sodexo.

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Jim Conning of Royal Mail Data Services (RMDS) provides some practical advice for how to use customer data in promotions, based on new research

Accurate, comprehensive data on customers and prospects is the essential bedrock of successful promotional marketing campaigns. But as it becomes more vital to marketers, new challenges, such as ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), are growing in importance, according to a new study from Royal Mail Data Services.

Based on research with UK brands and marketing agencies, the survey highlights four trends:

GDPR compliance is marketers’ number one concern

Nearly three in 10 (29%) of respondents listed GDPR compliance as their biggest worry, up from just 12% in the 2016 study. Breaking this down, a quarter (25%) of brands saw GDPR compliance as their greatest challenge, rising to 35% among agencies.

The study drilled down to ask brands and agencies how confident they were that their internally held customer data was GDPR compliant. The positive news is that 78% of all marketers were either “very” or “reasonably” confident that it complied with the new regulation – although worryingly, 11% were not confident, including 2% who did not know if they were compliant or not.

The barriers to using marketing data effectively

Marketers are facing churn rates that see nearly one in five (19%) customers leaving every year. Consequently, finding and acquiring replacements remained the number-one objective for marketers, with 42% citing it as their biggest challenge. However, this has fallen from 52% in 2016. Interestingly “analysing customer data”, a new option for 2017, has emerged as the top concern for just under a quarter of respondents (24%). Clearly, boosting analytics capabilities is a fast-emerging priority for brands and agencies alike.

Companies also seem to be giving up on the idea of reactivating dormant customers, rather than searching for new ones. In 2014 nearly one-quarter (24%) said this was their number-one marketing priority, but by 2017 the figure had dropped to just 6%. This could be linked to worries about poor-quality customer data or whether dormant customer data is GDPR compliant and can be used in marketing to this group.

Turning data into successful campaigns

How can marketers effectively use the huge amount of data they now hold? What is holding them back?

When asked where the gaps were that need filling, the results mirrored overall marketing challenges. The same number of respondents (24%) pointed to analysing customer data as their biggest issue, a figure that rose to 28% within brands. This demonstrates a clear need for greater analytics skills and capabilities, particularly for brands.

Perhaps reflecting that they already had analytics skills, the biggest area for improvement that agencies flagged (29%) was access to better-quality customer data. Brands also struggle to embed data cultures within their businesses. More than one in five (21%) said that a having a better understanding across the organisation of the importance of good-quality customer data would improve business performance.

When it comes to driving successful campaigns in terms of response and conversion rates, marketers agree it is all about data and how you use it. On a scale of one to five, the four top success factors reported were quality of contact data (4.6), segmentation and targeting (4.6), personalised content (4.4) and timing (4.3). In comparison, creative design scored just 4.0 out of 5. These top-four factors all rely on good-quality data and analytics in some way, and marketers reported that they had all increased in importance dramatically since last year.

Ensuring better data quality

Poor-quality customer data was cited as their biggest challenge by nearly one in five (18%) marketers. The main drivers of poor-quality data were basic errors – specifically out-of-date information and incomplete data. This was above factors such as duplicate data, spelling mistakes and data in incorrect fields.

Marketers understand that data is a living entity and quickly becomes out of date. This is leading to them focus on more formal, regular data cleansing – 22% do this daily or continuously. However, one-third (33%) still have no formal processes in place to clean customer contact data, although this has dropped from 37% in 2016. This means a sizeable minority are putting themselves at risk of data-quality issues – and potential GDPR investigations over non-compliance.

Poor-quality data hits business performance – marketers estimate that the average cost of poor-quality customer data is 6% of annual revenue. For major brands this is measured in millions of pounds – and excludes any potential fines for GDPR non-compliance, which can be as much as 4% of global turnover.

Data is the lifeblood of promotional marketing campaigns – having the best ideas in the world mean nothing if you can’t reach the right customers and prospects. However, as the Royal Mail Data Services research has found, marketers face key challenges around GDPR compliance, analytics, and quality that they need to overcome if they are to deliver successful campaigns that boost the bottom line.

A full copy of the report, “The use and management of customer data”, can be downloaded from the Royal Mail Data Services website.

Jim Conning is Managing Director of Royal Mail Data Services (RMDS), which is the specialist data business of Royal Mail Group. It provides organisations with customer contact and address data, data-quality, addressing and marketing services. It is committed to developing new ways for customers to look up, capture, validate and use contact and address data more effectively. Royal Mail Data Services helps organisations improve customer data quality, marketing performance and customer engagement.

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The Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM), the UK trade body representing the promotional marketing industry, has announced the appointment of Paul Cope as its new Managing Director, to head the IPM’s Executive Team and lead the organisation forward. Cope joins with a heavyweight marketing career under his belt, having worked client and agency side, and has a wealth of promotional and integrated experience to add to the IPM’s talent base.

Cope’s appointment as Managing Director is announced as Carey Trevill steps down after three years in the role. Trevill will be taking on a new direction and leaves the organisation in the early summer. During this period, Cope and Trevill will work closely together to ensure a smooth handover for IPM Members and in the run up to the IPM’s legendary Awards night.

IPM Chairman John Sylvester says: “I would like to thank Carey for the tremendous contribution she has made to the IPM during her tenure.  She and her team have worked tirelessly serving our members and keeping the IPM aligned with the rapid change we have seen in the industry over recent years.  On a personal note, it has been a great pleasure working alongside Carey and I wish her every success with her future plans.”

Sylvester adds: “I am delighted to welcome Paul to the helm.  His knowledge, expertise and experience makes him ideally placed to take the IPM forward and continue the momentum that has built up over the last few years.”

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The Institute of Promotional Marketing, the body which represents the promotional marketing industry in the UK, has welcomed three new members to its board of directors.

Following elections at the end of 2017, Kim Robinson, European Marketing Services Manager at Kraft Heinz (right of picture), Mike Dando, EMEA Advertising and Promotions Manager at Epson Europe (left of picture) and Andrew Rae, Head of Promotions at specialist agency Black Tomato (centre) all joined the board from January 1^st 2018.

John Sylvester, IPM Chairman, says: “I am delighted to welcome Kim, Mike and Andrew to the Board here at the IPM. All three have been great supporters and advocates of the IPM over many years and we look forward to their contribution. The industry is going through some of its most monumental changes in its history and a strong board will ensure the IPM is best placed to help its members address the future with relevant and credible plans for 2018 and beyond.”

In addition to the three new board members, Jess Hargreaves, Joint Managing Director of PrettyGreen, Rob White, Co-Founder and Strategic Planning Director of ZEAL Creative, Stephen Bentley, Chairman of Granby Marketing, and Peter Kerr, Executive Chairman of MRM, were all re-elected to the IPM Board.

Lucy Brackett, Head of Marketing UK & Ireland at Epson stood down from her two-year tenure together with Sarah Burns of Prizeology and Mark Kimber of PIMS SCA. In addition, after 10 years’ service to the IPM Board, Sam Blunt, Global Marketing Operations Director at Quorn Foods has also stepped down.

Sylvester adds: “I would like to thank Lucy, Sarah and Mark for their commitment, service and dedication during their time on the Board. Sam Blunt will be much missed on the Board and the IPM has benefitted from his sound opinions, support and wisdom over the last decade.”

New board appointments take effect in January 2018 and new Board directors will be welcomed at the IPM’s Annual General Meeting at 12 noon on Thursday 11^th January, 2018.

The IPM is the UK marketing industry trade body for promotional and experiential marketing. It works with other UK marketing industry trade bodies to represent the marketing industry with Government in the UK and Europe and to protect the UK public via the self-regulatory system. It supports professionalism in promotional marketing through its world-renowned training programmes and its highly-coveted awards schemes.

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The IPM has announced the results of its IPM 30 Under 30 2018 search for emerging talent in the promotional marketing industry.

The chosen candidates will now be officially welcomed to the 30 Under 30 2017 programme at an event to be held on December 14th 2017 at The Arch in Marble Arch.

The IPM 30 Under 30 2018 programme was launched on September 26th 2017, with a call for entries from IPM Member companies. Candidates could be of any level and any role, so long as they were under the age of 30 before the closing date of entry, which was 23:59 hours on Tuesday October 24^th 2017. They also had to work for an IPM Member.

The IPM is dedicated to championing professional development for the up-and-coming in the promotional marketing industry. Candidates were asked to state clear reasons why their inclusion on the programme would make a difference to their professional and personal development, together with evidence and endorsements.

The judging panel consisted of Chris Baldwin, Sodexo; Jill Lorimer, Account Management Skills; Mark Pavlika, Lucid Consults; Richard Pink, Pink Key Consulting; Jenny Plant, Account Management Skills; Tony Spong, AAR; Victoria Walsh, The Believe Consultancy; and Dan Wilks, Advertising Association.

They sifted through a massive number of submissions to find the winners and their choices can now be viewed on the IPM website.

The candidates chosen for the programme will now be offered the chance to participate in a range of learning experiences to enhance their capabilities and to provide them with skills and knowledge which they can take away and share with their colleagues in the organisations they work for.

The next call for entries, for the 30 Under 30 2019 programme, will open in September 2018. If you are an IPM Member and would like to register interest for the next intake, please contact the IPM team. 

The IPM 30 Under 30 2018 programme is sponsored by Sodexo.

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