Sold Out & Coming Soon

Several local radio stations now have online "clubs" where listeners can accumulate points for various actions (listening daily, participating in polls, visiting advertisers...), and then use these points to participate in contests or purchase goodies like concert tickets or advertisers' merchandise.

It's a great idea. Advertisers can extend their marketing beyond a 15- or 30-second spot. The radio station encourages habitual and dedicated listening, and becomes a more multi-channel media provider. Consumers get free stuff and can gain (to a small degree) a sense of participation.

But here's what bugs me about one local station: every time I go to their "store" to spend some points, there's almost nothing available. Once in a while there might be a CD or some movie tickets, but that's about it. The more interesting and valuable products and services are almost always Coming Soon! or Sorry Sold Out!

So, this tells me that my points really have no value.

Other loyalty programs suffer from similar problems. How many times have you tried to book a trip in an airline's Miles program only to discover that the flights you want are excluded?

For the radio station, there doesn't seem to be any excuse for a lack of items. Surely they can find a handful of advertisers willing to provide merchandise in exchange for the extra exposure of being on the Web site. Most major companies have some sort of sampling program -- what could be better than having consumers "pay" for samples that you would give away anway? Something tells me that the station staff just aren't trying very hard. After all, the people dealing with advertisers are traditional radio reps, not Internet media salespeople or promotions experts.

But, reasons aside, back to the impact on brand.
If you're going to offer something, you better make sure it's available.

If not, you're hanging on the edge of a dangerous spiral...

"They don't have anything fun to buy"
"I won't bother looking for anything to buy very often"
"I won't bother to collect points very often"
"This station is kinda disappointing"
"Now that you mention it, why do they play that 'Delilah' song every ten minutes?"

Either step away from the spiral or plug it up with something.