Grocery games deflate any high hopes
By KEVIN HARDEN
Of the Emerald
Harold and his wife hunched in
front of their television set popping
M&M’s into their mouths and
awaited the fateful moment. They
were nervous. This could be their
big chance. They could win some
big money and buy all those things
they had been passing in the
store.
They had arrived. Harold turned
the TV sound up and listened in
tently. The horses were at the
starting gate. The whistle blew,
and they were off.
Harold's wife popped more
M&M's into her mouth and
munched nervously as the horses
rounded the first bend. “Go! Go!
Go!" she shouted into the 19-inch
screen, waving her fist in the air.
The horses turned the final
corner and were into the home
stretch. Harold broke out in a
sweat. His horse was running a
dose third and looked as if it could
burst ahead at any second.
As fast as it had begun, the race
ended. Harold sat dejected. His
wife popped a handful of M&M's
into her mouth and munched her
sorrow away. They had lost. Their
horse finished a poor fifth.
They may have lost, but they
certainly weren't alone. In fact,
Harold and his wife were only two
people out of 140,000 who had
come away empty handed from
that horse race. But for some
lucky person, "Let's Go To The
Races" paid off. Probably even as
much as $1,000.
Although a nervously awaited
money-winning game "Let’s Go
To The Races” is really nothing
more than another promotional
advertisement gimmick used by
the Portland-based Fred Meyer
Department store chain, accord
ing to Jean Knutson, of the Fred
Meyer advertising office.
Aside from promotion, the
games also play a large part in the
fierce grocery store competition.
It's like selling shoes, says Gary
Cook, the regional manager for
Mayfair and Savon stores in
Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
Last April, Cook began his own
"Quick Cash" game in area
Mayfair and Savon stores after
observing the success of similar
games in other grocery chains.
"Some people will wear plain
shoes and others want shoes with
big clunky toes," Cook said. "So, if
you sell the clunky-toed shoes
you'll get those customers. What
we want to do is augment the
proposition we have given people
with our groceries. We hope to
have a little different mousetrap.”
Cook's game ended in July,
after giving away over $25,000 in
prizes which ranged from $1 to
$1,000.
Game-playing grocery buyers
didn’t have to wait long to begin
collecting prize-promising game
cards again. Fred Meyer's game
began in early August, closely fol
lowing the opening of a similar
“Post Time" game offered by area
Thriftway stores. Safeway stores
followed with the opening of their
$215,000 "Super Sweepstakes.”
According to Cook, who has
been in the grocery business for
several years, competition among
stores is very stiff and almost any
thing will be attempted to increase
profits.
It wasn’t competition, though,
that caused Fred Meyer stores to
begin their game, Knutson said.
“We are approached by people
who were in the business of sel
ling these games and we decided
to go ahead and do it," he said.
Although the 41 Oregon and
Washington Fred Meyer stores
had been involved in a similar
“Cash King” game a year ago,
Knutson said competition among
other game-playing stores had no
thing to do with the new game.
It was competition, however,
that forced the state’s Thriftway
stores into the very similar “Post
Time" horse-race game, accord
ing to Tom Feltz, advertising
manager for the 63 Oregon and
southwest Washington Thriftway
chain stores. “The game is just
another way of promoting our pro
ducts,” he said. “We’re in a very
competitive situation. We planned
to have the game before the other
stores, but Fred Meyer broke with
theirs, so we went ahead and
broke with ours."
“Post Time," which also began
in August, was chosen from
among four major games offered
by a firm selling promotional
games. Usually the slowest month
of the year for grocery stores, Au
gust is a good month to use pro
motional tools, Feltz said.
Both “Post Time" and “Let's Go
To The Races" involve not only
shopping at the grocery stores to
get a game card, but also setting
aside one-half hour each Satur
day or Sunday to watch the tele
vised horse races on which each
winning card is based.
Fred Meyer's “Let's Go To The
Races” is aired Sunday evenings
from 10 p.m. to 10:30 on
Portland’s KPTV and involves five
actual filmed horse races. Each
race, most of which took place be
tween 1962 and 1963, has a field
of five to ten numbered horses
running, complete with narration
and track-side announcing.
' Let s Go To The Races
players are given a game card for
each visit to Fred Meyer stores.
The race and the cardholder’s
computer-determined horse
selection is listed. The first race is
worth $2, the second $5, the third
$10, the fourth $100 and the fifth
race is worth $1,000. The odds,
computed weekly, get more chal
lenging with each race. For the
third week of September, out of 65
$1,000 winning cards, only one
person from 140,000 participants
held the winning number.
Thriftway's “Post Time" is very
similar to Fred Meyer’s horse race
game, but is handled through a
different company. The odds for
Thriftway game players are much
steeper, however, with only one
participant in 192,308 having a
chance to win $1,000 in one week.
Having two similar games in the
same city at the same time can be
very confusing, admits Feltz, and
it may even keep some people
from participating at all.
At last count, however, partici
pation was at its peak, and nearly
half-way through the games, Fred
Meyer stores had given away al
most 70 per cent of the promised
prizes. Only two Eugene
Springfield residents have won
$1,000 in the game, with count
less others winning the lesser
prizes.
With $184,000 in prizes to be
awarded, Thriftway prize holders
included nine $1,000 and 22 $100
winners.
Paying for the promotional
games can be a problem. Al
though many people think stores
may raise their food prices to
cover the game’s expenses, Feltz
explained that just the opposite
may happen.
"You don’t raise your prices,’’
Feltz said. “What the store wants
to do is increase the customers by
the promotion of the game, so, if
anything, it becomes more com
petitive in prices during these
games.”
Frank Wingert, district manager
for area Safeway stores, pre
dicted last spring that Safeway
wouldn't be playing a promotional
game because they are too costly.
“These games are very costly and
this cost is usually passed onto
the consumer,” he said.
Whether they are too costly or
not, Safeway began a “Super
Sweepstakes” worth $215,000 in
automobiles, gift certificates and
smaller prizes the first week of
September, at the urging of the
competition. According to Al
Neish, advertising manager for
statewide Safeway stores, the
sweepstakes game is being fi
nanced from his advertising
budget.
“I don’t know how the other
stores are paying for their games,
and I don’t care,” Neish said. “It’s
just that we lose customers every
time other stores run a promo
tional thing, so we’ve got to be
competitive."
Safeway, which prefers the
sweepstakes in lieu of cash
games, plans to give away two
cars (a Chevrolet Impala and a
Chevette) every week of the
eight-week drawing.
Do Safeway prices go up during
the game? No, said Neish. “Sure
we have to pay for the game, but it
comes out of our profits. We just
have to be competitive so we ll get
more customers, that's all.”
Grocery store games are not
new. Neariy ten years ago similar
games were played by both gro
cery stores and gasoline stations.
The energy crunch ended the
gasoline station participation, and
a dwindling interest in the games
with some shady advertising prac
tices pushed them aside for sev
eral years. But, said Eric Stan of
the Oregon State Consumer Pro
tection Bureau, most of the major
grocery store chains are more
careful about how they run their
promotions, and it looks like
prize-promising games may be
back in style.
Most shoppers grimly await their turn at dishing out money in the
check-out counter at a local grocery store but as signs indicate these
folks may become the lucky winners in the store's sweepstakes. Some
stores give away as much as $1,000 in cash or offer cars and ap
pliances. But the odds on winning are not anything to get excited
about-only one in 192,308 for the $1,000 contest according to one
store manager.
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