Kickboxing marketing: analysis and alternatives

"Fiasco with cheap season tickets. Saas-Fee increases ski pass price after 22-franc flop," headlined Blick.

In retrospect, it's always easy to talk about supposed flops. The campaign was very aggressive, and loud and caused a furor. Basically not bad attributes in marketing. Only those who break new ground leave traces. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't.

Nevertheless, this strategy is a really exciting lesson in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. So let's take a look at the details.

The announcement came as a bang for the buck. Almost 80 % discount even the season ticket! Not only one-year subscriptions were sold, but also those for 3 and even for 15 years. A lot of skiing for very little money. On the one hand, it also worked. Tens of thousands of customers benefited from this bargain offer. 45% more skiers on the slopes in the Saas Valley. But at what price? Such a strategy has to be advertised accordingly. Instead of the usual 600,000 Swiss francs, it seems that 3.2 million Swiss francs were spent on advertising the new "Hammer Deal" campaign in the first year and another 3.1 million in the second season. 533% more marketing spend to advertise a discount of 80%! Now this is by far not the decisive fact of the whole action. That is "only" the financial point of view. But there is a much more important side of the coin. And that is the customer view.

In marketing, we must always start from the customer. What makes him happy, what even makes him loyal? Here it is crucial to distinguish intrinsic from extrinsic motivation. I'll make an example:

Extrinsic motivation

The chef on one side of the street cooks the same six dishes day after day. Everything is canned and every step is precisely documented. In the long run, this is no longer fun. He cooks only to get his pay at the end of the month. Accordingly, the food will also taste... Extrinsic motivation feeds on the results of behavior and additional consequences from outside - typically incentives like money or punishments. Praise and recognition from others are also classic extrinsic incentives. This includes anything that comes from outside a behavior itself to motivate the behavior.

Intrinsic motivation

The chef across the street, on the other hand, goes to the market every morning to tailor his dishes to the seasonal produce at the time. There is no menu in the restaurant. Only a blackboard with the daily specials. To be allowed to conjure up a new work of art every day and to decorate the plates in the most beautiful colors... this joy in an activity itself is called intrinsic motivation in psychology. People who behave out of intrinsic motivation are, compared to extrinsically motivated people, more satisfied with their activity (enjoy the journey), pursue the goals more persistently, are more pleased with the achievement of a goal, and cope better with failure.

Extrinsic motivation, when put harshly, is, therefore, more of an alternative when you fail to make work activities self-motivating enough - or when you have chosen the wrong employees who do not bring their own drive.

Corrupting effect

There is obviously a clear interaction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic rewards. In this context, numerous studies have shown that intrinsically rewarding behavior has lost its own motivational properties as a result of extrinsic incentives (cf. e.g. Deci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999).

For example, children in a kindergarten love to color. They just draw on their own accord, grab paper and pencils, and enjoy the process. So, in the best sense, they are intrinsically motivated to color. The kindergarten teacher now comes up with the idea to additionally motivate the behavior (painting) extrinsically. On Monday of next week, she starts giving five gummy bears to the children for each picture they draw. What happens? The children paint even more, but the pictures become simpler and less complex - after all, it's now about the gummy bears and less about the fun of painting. By the end of the week, the painting performance also decreases as the children get used to gummy bears - they are no longer perceived as something special. At the beginning of next week comes the bang: there are no more gummy bears! Most children who previously enjoyed coloring without extrinsic incentives now stop coloring. After all, there are no more gummy bears for it! So the intrinsic motivation for a behavior has been destroyed by extrinsic incentives. This is called a corrupting effect.

But what does this have to do with Saas Fee and its dumping strategy?

The creators of the cheap subscription may have been looking for the quickest and easiest way into the minds of the customers, but not the most sustainable one. The goal of the marketing people was to lure customers outside the usual catchment area. Zurich residents should not go skiing in Graubünden as usual but enjoy the snow and sun in the Saas Valley. And the only USP was to be the price. So the customer was picked up purely by his extrinsic motivation. At the latest in Brig, 4 hours and 2 traffic jams later, Mr. Zürcher sat unnerved in his car and bitterly regretted his decision. The shelf life of money as motivation is just not very long.

So how could the idea have been "intrinsically spiced up"?

Saas-Fee app with credit and cool features! Alternatively, why not a "Digital Pleasure Pass" with a starting credit of up to 800 francs (equivalent to the distributed discount). If we're going to go for the big stick, then let's make it super smooth and gentle. Any interested customer can download a Saas-Fee Genuss App and enjoy it throughout the season. Although he has paid the full amount (is actually a fair amount) and gets on top still a fantastic gift. The advantages at a glance:

1 – Happy longer

The customer is rewarded not only once with a super discount which he then soon forgets. He can enjoy it for the whole season. With every coffee luz, duck leg with polenta, or the delicious cream slice he will be reminded of his fantastic bargain.

2 – Business 2 User Communication

Sasa-Fee is directly connected to his customers via smartphone. A happy hour here, free seats in the mountain restaurant there. With a push notification, it would be possible to address all visitors directly and in an uncomplicated way, draw their attention to dangers, or simply wish them a fantastic day in the mountains.

3 – More turnover

If the credit is used up, it can be topped up in a few seconds. For every 100 francs spent, the customer is credited with 105 francs. Everything can be paid for directly with the app. Uncomplicated and even a little cheaper.

4 – More customers and less CO2

The app would also be equipped with a webcam, of course. The customer sits in the office on Friday and sees the meteorological data for the coming weekend directly in the Saas-Fee app. Bottom fie top hui. "Hello Marco, you still have 473.40 loaded on your app. Don't let the fog spoil your winter and come up to us. PS. Come by train and we'll reward you with another 10 francs."

5 – Regional co-marketing

The cost would be the same. However, the money would of course inevitably stay in the region. Restaurants, hotels, etc. would benefit directly.

6 – Friends Finder and Tell a Friend Feature

Another feature in the app could be a Friends Finder. If one is linked to a person, one can contact them directly, chat, and view their current location. Of course, you can also invite friends to the app and thus to the ski slopes.

7 – Childcare

The credit in the app should also be able to be spent on childcare whenever possible. Ski instructors for the little ones, crèches, etc. Mommy & Daddy would have the opportunity to enjoy some time for themselves. Even if we love our children and miss them terribly after a short time, all parents agree on this point; these little time-outs without children are simply priceless! More "intrinsic skiing" does not go.

That would have been just one of very many "finer" alternatives to the kickbox marketing strategy. Baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Z. Each generation has its characteristics, motivations, ideologies. And each generation wants to be addressed differently.