The latest Robinson’s Juice promotion involves handing over some profit to transform playgrounds around the country.
Transform your patch
Here’s what it says on the back of a large juice bottle:
Sometimes people get caught up on this sort of thing and don’t think about the numbers involved.
Let’s consider a small playground of size 6 metres by 4 metres, which might just be enough for a set of swings. To pay for the transformation of this mediocre patch of land Robinson’s would have to sell 600 x 400 = 240 000 bottles of juice. SERIOUSLY?
If Robinson’s sell nearly a quarter of a million bottles then they would have to cough up for the transformation of a patch on land into some swings and soft surface. I reckon this conversion would cost about £6000 (a severe guess but probably about right) and this represents a cost per bottle of 2.5p and given a profit margin of, say 40%, this means Robinson’s are laughing all the way to the shareholders’ meeting.
Essentially this is an ingenious piece of marketing and I think they should be congratulated. Well done Robinson’s. It looks like they are doing wonders for the community but in reality they are doing little.
A similar scam, sorry marketing ploy, was run by Pampers when they said that for each pack of nappies sold they would donate a single vaccination to UNICEF. This is marketing at its worst. Trying to make companies seem like they care when in reality they are just doing it to make more money (the basics of capitalism I know!).
If these companies were truly serious about changing playgrounds or helping vaccinate the world they would publish something along the following lines:
We have decided to turn ALL profits for one year over to XXXX charity so that they are able to further our combined missions to improve the health and well-being of the children of this fragile Earth.
If a company did volunteer ALL the profits from one product line then I would happily buy them over another but when it’s just part of the marketing campaign then be cynical.