Improving on the Newspaper & Coffee Promotion

By Robert L. Rubrecht

Over the years, the most common type of newspaper-retailer partnership has been the coffee and a newspaper promotion.  It is the most basic promotion, a combo buy featuring two early morning products, coffee and a newspaper (okay I know that there are a number of afternoon newspapers but the vast majority are delivered in the morning).  The Herald-Mail Company began with the common promotion and built on it to include a mystery shopper promotion, reader contest and retailer competition as well.  They also included two partners, the retailer, AC&T, a convenience store chain in their market and The Hagerstown Suns, the local minor league baseball team.

The promotion provided an opportunity for readers to make a combo purchase of a Herald Mail Newspaper and coffee or the newspaper and fountain drink for only .99 daily and $1.99 on Sunday.  To further entice the customer, the promotion also offered weekly prizes of $200 and a grand prize of $1000.  “Spot Woolie” (Woolie is the mascot of the Hagerstown Suns) Ads containing an entry form and promoting the newspaper and drink special ran daily in the Herald Mail.  Readers had to identify the section and page number where Woolie was found that day.  This also encouraged readership of the newspaper and foot traffic into the AC&T stores because readers – single copy and home delivery – were required to complete the entry form and then drop it off in a box at the AC&T store.

To gain further mileage from the program, photos of the five weekly winners and the one grand prize winner ran in the Monday newspaper.  In addition to the reader contest, the newspaper established a competition among the 15 AC&T stores offering $250 to the store with the greatest percentage sales increase in year over year sales.

The initial concept was to create a hometown promotion with local favorites for a low cost.  AC&T funded the mystery shopper program and the reader contest while the Hagerstown Sun contributed baseball tickets and merchandise.

AC&T and the Herald Mail have worked together in the past creating updated display units and AC&T has allowed the newspaper to sell Home Delivery subscriptions through the kiosk program in their stores. 

The results for the contest which ran May 25 through July 6 showed an increase of 393 daily, 420 Saturday and 288 Sunday copies.   The newspaper also benefited with enhanced positioning and additional P-O-P.  For the retailer, they saw an increase in coffee and fountain beverages which have a higher profit margin than bottled beverages.  The retailer also benefited because of the additional foot-traffic and the exposure as a result of the daily advertisements.

First Published:
December 19, 2007