What attracts consumers: Free Samples, Coupons or Expensive, cool, sexy products

Like a few weeks ago, I was again walking up and down on Michigan Ave (in Chicago) and as a co-incidence M&M was again handing out their new ice cream bars. There were people all over with their ice cream. It was 90 degrees outside and I am sure consumers were enjoying it to the fullest. They did have the truck full of bars and people were consuming them fast.

While, walking back I passed the Apple store and I saw this long line – longer than the one for the M&M ice cream bars, I thought, "Wow! is Apple giving away something for free?" I asked someone in the line – "What is this line for" and she said "For the iPhone". I thought, on one end there are people in line to get free ice cream and on the other end people are standing in line to get the iPhone which is $199 and then a monthly service of $79. What a contrast!

Then a few more blocks near the Tribune building I see these two guys with the golden arches -"McDonalds" giving away coupons (Buy one get one free) for the Iced Coffee and there was no even a single person taking coupons from them.

It is just so amazing to see three such strong brands and the differences in how consumers perceive about them.

If I were to measure these three I think Apple is the clear winner as they were the only one making revenue and are locking down consumers with a 2 yr contract with AT&T, so not only is there a onetime cost but also a monthly cost and now with the new applications they are even charging for them as well.

Oh! and then there was this guy who had the M&M ice cream and the Coffee coupon, not sure if he bought the $199 iPhone.

Samples, how can we have a similar concept online?

I am sure everyone has had a free sample ice cream or candy bar. I just had two M&M ice cream bars while walking up and down on Michigan Ave. Anyone who has walked on Michigan Ave today between 12-2 has to have had it. They had trucks sitting on the road and they were giving them away. Even the trash cans on Michigan Ave were showing that – see picture below (I wanted to take a picture of the trucks but missed it). How measureable are these samples? Yes, we can model out how many ice cream bars were given out and use an average conversion rate to guesstimate the impact of the samples.

While walking back, I thought how we can have a similar concept online. Yes, we cannot give away free ice cream online but there are a lot of different products which can be sampled online. For example: When Sony or Microsoft release new video game for Playstation or Xbox, demo versions of the games should be available to download online for the gaming enthusiasts to play. After the demo, there should be a promotional offer to buy the full version of the game. This would be fully measureable – from number of demo games played to how many gamers bought the full version of the game. One more thing could be free versions of browser or software like picture organizer.

Even looking at upward in the funnel, there can be online banners and the click-through rate would help understand the initial engagement with the game. Nowadays even in-banner gaming is a possibility with the fancy rich-media banners.