Mcdonalds Monopoly

I don't know about you but I am partial to a big mac and fries!
And...for quite a lot of my working life I specialised in promotions...
On a recent visit, early morning I might add, my tray was transformed into a quasi Monopoly board. So I looked, eventually to see it was a promtion yet one of such amazing complexity that I wondered who would understand it, or who would be motivated by a prize especialy if they could not decipher what it was. Having realised I had not been given a game piece I went to the counter and got one. Not without noticing the A3 sized poster of rules and conditions, reminiscent of those just behind the entrance in NCP carparks!
I then realised it was a game of two halves and I am not that frequent a visistor for it to have any worth.
Obviously some people think this type of promotion has value by the fact the halves are being offered on eBay.
So heavy users with time to spare and a PHD in old board games are the obvious target audience for this promotion from McDonalds.
Surely they must have bigger groups than that to warrant this investment?

A Marketing Superior thought...
A strong incentive offer with an easily understood involvement are pre-requisites for any promotion.
Perhaps I'll just keep collecting for the free cup of Kenco coffee but I can't get the sticker off the side and I've torn the collector card.
I'll just go large then...

Egg marketing is cracked

The recruitment cost for a new credit card user most be quite high, buying list, creating mailing and sending pieces which offers free balance transfers or other inducements.
Even if it is as low as twenty pounds then what marketer would knowingly and wilfully throw away 160,000 accounts and waste over 3 million of marketing spend.
Well that is what the new owners of egg the credit card have done. Ostensibly on credit grounds only grounds but when pushed they have admitted that low usage and regular full balance payment will have contributed to the decision.
The simple proposition in the letter sent to a friend of mine was that your credit is not good enough and you should check with Experian as to your credit worthiness. My friend did, back it came after spending a fiver or so, to find that he is 999 out of a thousand for credit rating. I am not surprised he is a very high net worth individual having successfully sold several businesses he built up.
It is, of course, the prerogative of any business to have what customers it wants but has no one thought of the damage that has been done to the brand! And where was the marketing thinking in sending a letter that is as far from good customer relationship practice as it is possible to be, no apology, no offer to increase usage, no suggestion of an alternative, just cut up the card and go way.
Where is the good marketing practice to act with such lack of commercial logic as to throw away millions of expenditure when you can, not simply through away, but profoundly upset a regular customer.
Some marketing superior thoughts...
1. Be careful when you segment your customers
2. Always give customers the chance to give you more of their business (most people have several active credit cards)
3. If you are going to ask them to leave why not show them the door by which they leave with an alternative offer that meets your changed customer criteria
4. If all else fails let them leave with dignity your brand is worth more that the unnecessary umbrage.