I was visiting some friends in Grand Rapids over the weekend. My friend has two daughters —one a 10th grader the other a freshman in college. While I was there,they were debating where to get their school supply. Of all the retail places to get supplies —Kmart,Walmart,Meijer,Staples,Officemax —they seemed fixated on one:OfficeMax. The reason for their fixation was the weekly items sold for a penny.
Their fixation seems to be a trend in back to school. An article in the Los Angeles Times (“Retailers hope for big pay-off with one-cent sales”) talks about different sales techniques by retailers to capture the back-to-school shopper.
Spiral notebooks,batteries,markers,crayons,pencils and even some clothing are just a few of the items going for 1 cent these days. The gimmick,which seems as old as the penny,is gaining traction as merchants try to attract penny-pinching consumers with deals.
“You’re playing into the consumer psyche,which is already delicate as it is,”said Marshal Cohen,chief industry analyst at NPD Group,a market research firm. “Buy one,get one free has been around so long it doesn’t even make a noise. Buy one,get one for a penny feels like a deal.”
The article points that Staples was one of the first retailers to bring back the penny promotions in 2006. OfficeMax upped the ante last year by trying to own the penny through multi-channel efforts including a series of humorous YouTube videos and giving away $2 million in pennies at the Mall of America. This year OfficeMax continued their penny promotion and added to the online video series.
Back to School is the second largest retail period of the year. It is also a hectic time. Consumers do not want to be ripped off,and most are looking for deals. Every retailer has a sale,but I think the penny breaks through the clutter. The penny says deal. The fact OfficeMax is consistent in their approach over the past several years bodes well. As they look to the future,they should expand on their penny campaign,finding innovate and different ways to solidify their cognitive ownership of the penny. If they can own the penny,it will be a long-term brand differentiator. And a penny will always be a deal.
