Lee is Latest with Pager Premium Lure - Brief Article

Aiming to spike holiday sales of its Lee Dungarees, VF Corp. will partner with Motorola for a pager gift-with-purchase program that will reach more than 3,000 department store doors.

The promo offers shoppers who purchase a pair of Original Straight Leg jeans or khakis a "free" Motorola Pronto FLX pager-meaning they pay $8.25 in monthly fees and $10 shipping. More than 50 retailers have signed on to run the Nov. 14Dec. 20 promo in their men's, young men's and juniors departments, including J.C. Penney, Sears, Kohl's and Mervyn's.

In-store signage features Buddy Lee, star of Dungarees' fall ads. "When danger can't find Buddy Lee, it pages him," reads a point-of-purchase card that takes after print ads by Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis. The agency has also designed retailer co-op ads to run in newspapers and circulars, but promo info will not tag Lee's popular TV commercials, which feature the static doll in humorous action scenarios.

Shoppers provide proof-of-purchase through an 800 number, then receive the pager within days, along with a Lee Dungarees-branded booklet containing contact info cards to hand out to friends and family.

Since 18 -to-24-year olds- Dungarees' prime target- account for 31% of pager sales, promos dangling them are becoming increasingly common. Teen embarked on a pager promo in its pages this fall and Calvin Klein teamed with the MTV Pager Network to offer a model at a $19.95 reduced-cost price with a $55 purchase of its CK jeans. While MTV's pager alerts wearers to special merchandise, prizes and music information, Lee is mulling how it will use the medium to follow up with its customers.

"We're exploring interesting and unexpected ways to tie this in to next year's marketing program," a Lee rep said.

COPYRIGHT 1998 BPI Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group