The phrase 'plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose)' might as well have been written about the world of sales promotion. Now more than ever, when we face a uniquely challenging economic landscape, marketers should take time to reflect on the successes and failures of yesteryear to bolster brand values and secure customer loyalty in an uncertain future. So, this week we are honoured to share an interview with Colin Lloyd, a veritable sales promotion godfather, who has recently written an impressive tome on the subject: "Beyond Redemption: The First Ever History of Sales Promotion." Well worth a read.

What lessons can Beyond Redemption teach us, particularly in today's challenging climate?
In a downturn response levels increase which can skew fixed fee response calculations. There is more couponing and discounting than ever and if brands are not careful promotions become the brand.  Having thought about it, looking back over 5 decades, some of the very best creative ideas were developed in recessionary time. Maybe the promotion industry is good under pressure?

During the recession of the 90's, owners of the top 7 promotion agencies (known as the 'Magnificent 7') identified the "20 commandments of running a promotion company in recessionary times". The lessons are a relevant today as they were then. We'll give you a few insights here, but if you want to read them all, you'll have to buy the book!

• Sell ideas that sell: be a salesman first and foremost
• Cherish ideas and innovation above everything
• Never resort to price-cutting
• Demand the best of your people, your suppliers and your board
• Keep on keeping it simple

Everyone cites 'Hoover Free Flights' as the benchmark of promotional catastrophe, but are there any other worthy failures that are less well known?
Hoover (£46 million) pales into financial insignificance against a promotion that The Labour Party initiated some 15 years ago called the Connections Card intended to reward pupils for attending school. According to Marketing Magazine they quietly wrote off £100 million of taxpayers money when they closed it. (We heard the actual figure was many times this amount!) 

When I was running KLP I had a promotion with Asda that someone else got wrong but cost me £5 million. A salutary lessons for anyone in our business.

We've detailed the classic of a Pepsi promotion in the US for a bottle top collection with thousands of normal aspirational prizes. However some bright spark decided to spice it up a bit and have a first prize of a Mig Fighter Jet for millions of bottle tops which they assumed no one would get. Guess what!! The judges summing up makes good reading.

What happens to a brand when a campaign goes wrong? We have vociferous complaints about several promotions on PromoWatch, but the brand seems to carry on regardless.
For each of the last five decades we have included a section called 'Interludes' which is just a polite euphemism for cock-ups. Sadly for our industry we could have written a couple more books on the interludes alone. Although one rather strange pattern that emerged is that the promotions have done rather well for brand uptake.

Are there really 'no new ideas' in marketing / sales promotion. Are we just re-packaging the same old concepts?
Almost certainly, in fact the known advent of many familiar concepts go back a surprisingly long way:

The 'Free-Entry' competition route which created the milestone John Player Spot Cash legal ruling (1978) may have been the last real development in sales promotion.  However I am always optimistic that the mould will be broken.

Many web-based promotions seem to follow a similar mechanic. Is the web actually killing creativity?
I was hoping that digital promotions would make the breakthrough. However so far we have the same techniques just delivered in a different way. Perhaps the good news is that it is cheaper to create promotions on-line, so more of the benefit can be passed onto the consumer. The biggest problem is really differentiation and response levels. I rarely hear of an on-line promotion delivering over 1 million redemptions which would have been a failure 30 years ago. In fairness I did hear of a 20 million redemption for a major supermarket a few days ago.

What developments might the future bring for mechanics, media etc?
My own view is that despite the theory of the 'Integration Bandwagon' we still have a silo mentality when it come to media. I believe that integration is a way of thinking, not a way of buying. Some of the most powerful promotions ever used multiple media channels. One frustrating example; why does no one use the emotional values of radio advertising and programming in harmony with the pragmatic values of direct mail? It's because Royal Mail won't link up with the the Radio industry. One plus one can create magic. Add a decent promotion and the gearing effect would be huge. The TV business wants to talk to the promotions industry but does not know how to. The reverse is also true. Lets get the dialogue going. I often quote that 95% of all direct marketing carries a promotional proposition. However the DM industry thinks that promotion is just a prize draw, thanks to Readers Digest. Another dialogue that needs to get going!

What is your stance on the slippery slope of a perpetual discounting culture?
We are in a vicious spiral. Our largest food manufacturer confessed to me the other day that they are in spiral and its costing hundreds of millions off their bottom line. The retailers are in the same position and no one can break it. The consequences are good for the consumer in the short term. However R&D budgets are being raided so successful new products will be thin on the ground. Its no coincidence that some of the best new products have come from a couple of people in a garage.

The only way out of this cycle is creativity. A truly great idea with courageous clients and passionate agencies will always win through in the end. If you don't believe it try another career.

Does sales promotion still excite you?
Yes - even more so because of the challenges. If my wife would let me, I would start another pure sales promotion agency and not mess around disguising it as something else. I remember 30 years ago I was going to start an ad agency. However a wise client of mine persuaded me not to. He said that there are dozens of good ad agencies but so very few good promotion agencies. However I did eventually buy my old agency that I used to work for and that did not work so he was right after all.

What is your favourite campaign from Beyond Redemption and why?
There are so many. We interviewed the great and the good from across the industry. The authors have chosen their best campaign of all time, but many others chose a promotion that my agency did for Andrex (but I could not possibly comment on that). There are some irreverent ones that made myself and others laugh out loud. Some reflect the amazing ingenuity that the public will go to with a promotion. Therefore in that context I would have to choose the Feedsaks container premium promotion from the US (details in the book).

Are you working on any other publications, perhaps a fictional work - an Enron story for the sales promotion industry?
Great idea. When I have come down from this book I will think about it. There was a great book written 10 years ago simply called 'E'. Its about an agency pitching for a new account but all the text is emails. Its priceless. Maybe I will do one called 'text' where all the copy is a sequence of texts about a sale promotion agency handling the next Hoover. I'm smiling already.

Any final message for our readers?
It's a quote from Jim Slater one of the greatest financiers of the70's and 80's.  In the middle of the fog of 80's recession, which we seem to be in today, he said "In the absence of a Crystal Ball the next best thing is a History Book". Hopefully Beyond Redemption will be the Crystal Ball for many in the promotion industry.