Success has many fathers…
Readers of this space know of our fascination with marketing efforts gone awry. The new year brought another doozy. PROMO Xtra’s Betsy Spethmann reported that Babies “R” Us would give away $120,000 in savings bonds and cash to make peace with consumers after a disqualification in its First Baby of the Year contest earned the wrath of Chinese-Americans and immigration advocates.
The contest promised a $40,000 prize package to the first baby born on New Year’s Day in a hospital that was registered for the contest. Three babies were born at midnight and Babies “R” Us randomly drew for a winner. The retailer disqualified the first name drawn because the parents, both Chinese nationals, were not American citizens.
Babies “R” Us said it awarded the $40,000 prize package to the second baby whose name was drawn, then decided to give the same package to the two other families after the disqualification sparked a debate on immigration.
Babies “R” Us duplicated the grand-prize package as a gift in a goodwill gesture. The contest disqualification stands, and the rules were not breached, the company said.
Babies “R” Us funded the two additional packages, which include a $25,000 savings bond for the child, a $10,000 education grant for the hospital, and $5,000 in Babies “R” Us gift cards for the delivering obstetrician.
In a statement, the company said, “We love all babies. Our sweepstakes was intended to welcome the first baby of 2007 and prepare for its future. We deeply regret that this sweepstakes became a point of controversy. As a result, we have decided to award all three babies in the grand prize pool a $25,000 savings bond.”
The contest, like most contests and sweepstakes run in the U.S., was open only to U.S. citizens. For contests that involve children, it is standard practice for contest administrators to verify the parents, not just the child, before declaring a winner. In this case, critics argued that the Chinese-American baby is a U.S. citizen since it was born in the U.S., according to news reports. But sweepstakes professionals recognize that the parents, who make legal decisions on their baby’s behalf, must also meet eligibility requirements.
Babies “R” Us garnered more than 1,000 entries directly from expectant moms. This was the second year that the contest has been run.
“Babies “R” Us Makes Amends over New Year’s Contest,” PROMO Xtra, January 9, 2007
New home = new TV
New homes inspire a desire for new televisions, according to the study Households on the Move, which found that recently-moved households lead non-moving households in all categories of recent TV purchases, from traditional tube TVs to flat-panel plasmas.
The study from Dallas research firm Parks Associates reports an estimated 23 million U.S. households move every 18 months. In that same timeframe, 20 percent of these households have purchased a traditional tube TV, 16 percent have purchased a flat-panel LCD TV, 7 percent have purchased an HD traditional tube TV, and 8 percent have purchased a flat-panel plasma. Among households that have not moved in the past 18 months, only 14 percent have recently purchased a traditional tube TV, 13 percent have purchased a flat-panel LCD TV, 5 percent have purchased an HD traditional tube TV, and 5 percent have purchased a flat-panel plasma.
The study attributes several factors to this trend, including the inconvenience of moving bulky electronics devices, concern over damage during the move, and a desire to outfit additional rooms in a new home.
“In some cases, over one-third of all the households buying these new products have recently moved,” said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates. “That’s not a segment you want to disregard. Consumer electronics companies should target households on the move through discounts and promotions.”
Timing appears to be everything with survey invitations
Although respondents to online surveys can choose when to complete surveys, the time at which the invitation is sent can have a major impact on the number of responses, according to findings from London-based Lightspeed Research.
The firm sent out invitations to an online survey to 7,440 of its panelists in Great Britain at different times during the week. Overall the results showed that invitations sent on a Monday afternoon achieved the best response rates, at up to 39 percent. Surveys sent at 5:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon resulted in relatively low response rates of 28 percent for women and 29 percent for men.
Additionally the research showed that external events could have a dramatic impact on response rates for online surveys. A major soccer game on Wednesday night had an impact on response rates, in particular amongst male respondents. Only 11 percent of male invitees from the Wednesday 5:30 p.m. invitation group responded to the survey, compared to 31 percent of women.
The research also showed that the majority of responders are likely to respond in the first 24 hours, with only around a third responding after this period. In other words, if the response rate is quite low within the first 24 hours it is unlikely to recover in the following days. Invitations sent on Monday at 5:30 p.m. achieved a response rate of 26 percent within the first 24 hours and ended with a total response rate of 38 percent after six days. On the other hand, an invitation sent on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. achieved only a 14 percent response rate after 24 hours and a total rate of 22 percent after six days.
When looking at the type of people who responded fastest, the study also found that the older members tended to respond quicker than younger people. Those in the 18-24-year-old range had a 9 percent response rate between 0 and 12 hours after the invitation was sent, rising to 14 percent for 48 hours-plus. The opposite trend was seen for the 55-65-year-olds, with a response rate of 29 percent in the first 12 hours, dropping to 22 percent for 48 hours-plus.
“Respondents are more likely to take part in a survey shortly after having received the invitation than keep it in their inbox and come back to it later,” said David Day, CEO of Lightspeed Research. “This does suggest that if the time for fieldwork is short, then deploying studies later in the week should be avoided, and this does have implications for certain industries that favor weekend completion. It also suggests that it is important to understand if the ‘missing’ responders have a different set of characteristics to those available to respond beyond the simple demographic differences outlined in this work which can be managed using quota controls.”