Watch the video first - Essay Example

Van How Does Vans Use Giveaways and Contests to Market Its Products? Van uses concerts, contests and events to do most of its sales and promotion. As a company Van realizes there customers like being given free merchandise, thus at times it offers free commodities. This helps as the customers are used to market van brand through the word of mouth.Van has a concert known as the Van Warped Tour, which presents famous punk rock and pop artists during the summer season. Van relies on the popularity of such artists to youths and kids who are going back to school on fall.

Besides, during tours, Van gives away free socks, shoes and merchandise to kids with the aim of making them recognize the Van brand while doing back to school shopping (Steve & Chris 2008).Van knows the existing opportunity of making huge profits during back to school shopping thus aims at creating a strong brand recognition to the target market.The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing sweepstakes is another activity that the company uses to help create awareness among the youth consumers. The sweepstakes is also merged with a Van Rockstar energy drink build its recognition by using the sweepstake.

A person who wins the sweepstake is given $500 Van gift cards and annual supply of the Rockstar Energy Drink. Only one individual wins the sweepstake but other participants in the process learn about the Van brands (Calvin, 2011).Van also has a surfing event known as Van Triple Crown that is generally a surfing competition. This competition is organized for fans who like watching and participating in surfing. The grand prize for the surfing competition is $820,000 and starts from November 12th to December 20th (Calvin, 2011).

The competition presents surfers with Van shirts, sneakers, flip flops among other products, which the consumers may be interested in.Van organizes trade shows that do not emphasize on personal selling but informs retailers, manufacturers and other interested parties on the direction van want to take.Why Do These Strategies Work so Well for Vans?Van strategies work so well because they target consumers on not only the buying aspects but also other parts of consumer’s life. Evidence of this is shown on the free merchandise, concerts, surfing events among others, which proves Van knows the consumers well and want to positively influence their life to some degree (Steve & Chris 2008).

ReferencesCalvin. (2011, October 22). Chapter 18/ Sales Promotion and Personal Selling. (The Blog @ Orange-Van shoes Blog). Retrieved form http://theblogatorange.blogspot.com/2011/10/chapter-18-vans-sales-promotions-and.html Steve, V. & Chris, O. (2008). Vans - Sales Promotion and Personal Selling. Retrieved from http://www.swlearning.com/marketing/now/lamb_marketing9e/eoc_video/ch1600.html