Incentives

The classic incentives promotion: if you buy this, you also get this. Some of these involve more legwork than others - these are more commonly referred to as rewards programs such as the Coke rewards program - each cap, box, etc. has a code that you enter online for points which eventually can add up to a toaster oven (with the Coca-Cola logo on it of course)! Rebates fall along the same kind of concept - the consumer will have to do a little work to mail in something to get money back on their purchase - surprisingly, not everyone does, even if the big word "Rebate" is what attracts them to the product in the first place.

Some incentives are a little more straightforward, such as a product-specific coupon - a popular one that my brother takes full advantage of is the DVD packaged with a ticket to an upcoming movie in the theater. I saw Ocean's 13 courtesy of one of Dan's purchases - thanks dude.

I have blogged about the digitization of music and about the concert industry; this new promotion that I just recently noticed combines the two. I got an e-mail from iTunes advertising the recently released Weezer album. The kicker is that it offered me the option of buying the album from iTunes within about a 1 or 2 day time span in exchange for a code to buy Weezer pre-sale tickets. I think this is a great idea - it promotes the new album and the concert and allows real fans to win over on that flawed ticketing system that I previously discussed. Some of the real Weezer fans would gladly purchase the album from iTunes, possibly even if they already had a leaked copy, just to get a good shot at decent seats for a Weezer show. Win for iTunes, win for the artist, win for the fans (loss for the scalpers! score!)