|  With technology and consumers placing ever greater demands on promotional campaigns, can handling and fulfilment keep up?
When Rob Champion first started out in the sales promotion industry 14 years ago, it was the norm for consumers taking part in a promotion to send their name and address to a handling and fulfilment house on a piece of paper two inches big, and then wait to receive their prize in roughly a month’s time.
It may seem rudimentary, but what Champion describes was essentially the main function performed by handling and fulfilment houses in the 1990s.
How things have changed.
These days sending a physical piece of paper via post is the exception not the rule, and winners expect to be notified instantly or within a few days of their status, with prizes delivered in often less than a fortnight.
So what have these changes meant for handling and fulfilment, the invisible and often silent partner of promotions?
One thing that will never change is the importance of the role that handling and fulfilment plays in promotions, despite all the advances in technology and changes in consumer behaviour.
Said Justine Clement, managing director of prize and incentive specialist Unmissable; “Handling and fulfilment is a crucial aspect of any promotion. If the fulfilment falls apart this could have a far reaching negative impact on the brand’s reputation, as well as a high risk of the promotion campaign being a failure.”
One only needs to remember the Hoover over redemption fiasco to understand just how far reaching the impact can be.
- ENDS -
|
