ABSTRACT
In 1697 Jonathon Holder, a London haberdasher, decided to offer customers spending over a guinea in his shop a free stock and price list. His pioneering decision to offer his customers ‘something extra’ was not universally welcomed. The newspapers of the day condemned this sales promotion as ‘a dangerous innovation’ and one which, ‘would be destructive to trade, if shopkeepers lavished so much of their capital on printing useless bills’. Over 300 years later, trade still flourishes and so do sales promotions, which now account for more ‘capital’ than any element of marketing communications except selling. During 2000, promotional expenditure in the USA (excluding discounting programmes) exceeded $100 billion for the first time, according to industry figures. Despite sales promotion’s growing importance, something of the scepticism that Mr Holder encountered lives on. In the study and practice of marketing, sales promotion has always been overshadowed by the more glamourous world of advertising. This situation is now changing, with sales promotion beginning to attract the academic study and practitioner scrutiny that its cost and increasingly strategic role surely demands.
