It's Time For The Ultimate Motivator

Reprinted with permission from
Sales & Marketing Strategies and News/May 1998

Where does the time go? Weren't we tied up in annual budget planning meetings just last week?

"What do you mean-third quarter projections are due tomorrow? I need more time!"

It's the ultimate competitor and the ultimate motivator. Time - we never seem to have enough of it; we always want more of it; we try to stop it, but time just keeps speeding forward like an Italian Ferrari blazing along Germany's Autobahn. One second it's in your rearview mirror, and the next you're watching its tail lights vanishing ahead into the distance.

Perhaps you and most of your customers or your distribution channel feel the same way Thomas Edison felt about it in 1931. "I am long on ideas, but short on time."

What could possibly be more rewarding and motivating than some of that precious commodity?

In 1996, Castelli Diaries USA, Sparks, Nev. - whose parent company is Bergamo, Italy-based Lediberg Castelli - wanted to increase order sizes for its appointment books. Fran Ford, president, also wanted to leverage Castelli's ability to fill personalized orders in three to five days with its Express Service. "We wanted to let people know that we can get goods out fast," he says. "Everyone else in our industry was working on two weeks or more."

Time out!

Appointment books? Express Service? What premium item would best suit a promotion designed to sell time-management products and time-sensitive services? You don't have to be Thomas Edison to figure this one out - a timepiece, of course. And how do you reinforce the high quality of a fine European diary?

"Fran approached us and wanted me to suggest what would work well," says Steve LaFalce, director, Precise Promotional Group, Orangeburg, N.Y. "They wanted a brand name European product that would support their positioning of an Italian-made product. Planners are time and motion, so watches made the most sense."

Using a related product in a themed promotion can mean the difference between just another campaign and one that brings results.

"Our research has shown that adding a dimensional product that is related to the theme or topic of the campaign increases the response for a particular program by 3.3 percent," says Ray Finfer, director of marketing communications, Promotional Products Association International, Irving, Texas. "In general, our distributor members make an effort to try to tie the products they pick to the overall theme of the campaign, rather than selecting a product at random."