Bog-off

Let’s start the week with some maths.

Take a product that sells for £10 and has a £2.50 cost. If you sell that for a 50% discount, half price, you’ll end with £2.50 in profit.

10 ÷ 2 = 5

5 – 2.50 = 2.50

Now, let’s get a bit smarter…

…instead of a 50% discount, you do a BOGOF, buy one and get another one free…

The sales value is still £10 and the total cost of the sale is;

£2.50 x 2 = £5

… you’re £5 in profit…

Yer’ve doubled yer profit, shifted stock and look as charitable as the Sally Anne…

In a US survey of shoppers: 67% of consumers admit that they like BOGOF the most, out of all discount promotions; 95% of respondents report that they have taken benefits of BOGOF promotions at least once.

Consumers think that they’ve got a good deal and sellers get both profit and shoppers’ satisfaction. Everyone’s a winner.

Perhaps not… what about quality?

Here are some more US consumer reactions. I doubt we are any different;

Dry grocery categories: BOGOF offers achieve higher sales lifts on average.
Frozen categories: a 50% off promotion achieves higher sales lifts on average.
Non-food grocery: BOGOF promotions produce more than double the sales lifts.
Health and beauty category: Greater sales lifts achieved with BOGOF versus discount promotions.

What are we to make of this? Dunno…

But, we do know BoJo was going to ban them because BOGOF is somehow inherently bad or wicked.

Now he’s not.

He was going to ban advertising products high in fat, salt and sugar( HFSS), on the telly, before the water-shed.

Seems like a good idea. HMG’s own document says;

Lower calorie consumption by children, over their lifetimes, is expected to generate health benefits… estimated at around £1.9bn.
There’d be additional health benefits… from reinvesting cost savings back into the NHS… estimated to be worth around £0.8bn.
Social care savings are estimated at… £52m
Reduced premature mortality would be expected to deliver an additional £41m of economic output.
Other forms of media are expected to gain £2bn worth of revenue due to HFSS advertising being displaced from TV and online.
HFSS retailers and manufactures are expected to gain £0.5bn in advertising cost savings.

The numbers speak for themselves. BoJo was going to do it.

Now he’s not.

The up-sum?

BOGOFs are not inherently bad, it just depends on what you’re buying and the numbers are clear, they can stimulate sales… of the right stuff.

Advertising junk-to-kids, on the telly, is bad, stopping it has obvious benefits. But…

BoJo’s backed off.

Why? Some mumbo jumbo about low-cost food being bad food and parents can turn-off the telly and the cost of living.

Fresh is generally cheaper than something in a packet… provided you know how to turn ingredients into a meal.

And…

You try turning-off SpongeBob Squarepants, Peppa Pig and Beep, Boop, Bing, Bang and Bo! The Advertising Standards Authority are already on it and need support to do more.

BoJo is a prisoner of his commodious backbenchers; enthral to the food industry and who enjoy tax-payer, subsidised restaurants in the House of Commons.

He’s fallen into the ‘priority-trap’

Healthy food is important, the cost of living is important… everything is important.

Priorities are distorted by lobbyistwho have reasons to claim they’re important.

The boss, or a good boss, finds a way to step back from the melee and prioritise what is really important.

Here are seven steps to prioritising what’s important:

Make a list. Prioritisation comes from understanding the full picture.
Be clear about your true, overarching goals.
Pick three that fit the goals. You can’t do more than three.
Then, take a breath and figure out: what is urgent and important; the rest will be important and not urgent. Urgent and unimportant or not urgent and not important. Scrap them, do the first one.
Avoid competing priorities.
Decide what will give the most progress-for-the-pound.
Review and review and review. Time and events change priorities.

Translate that into BoJo’s dilemma. He looks indecisive and easily manipulated. Confused and lacks courage.

The answers emerge for themselves;

Kid’s health is really important.
BOGOF’s don’t have to be for rubbish stuff.
Supporting parents and the authorities, to make the right choices is the job of government.
Doing the right thing is the job of a leader.

The only way for BoJo to avoid being ensnared by backbenchers and lobbyists…

... having to prioritise kids’ health and avoiding the whisper of Judas…

… is to find the courage to tell them all, to bog-off.

News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.