Marketing Madness

BUY A VACUUM CLEANER OR WASHING MACHINE from Maytag's British subsidiary, Hoover, and get two air tickets to the U.S. or continental Europe, free! Sound like a good deal? You bet! Such a good deal, in fact, that Hoover sold tens of thousands of appliances -- far more than the company anticipated. Great! Right?

Not from a bottom-line perspective. The travel agents contracted by Hoover to supply the service were overwhelmed by the demand. They placed unreasonable conditions on the freebie flights -- expensive extras, inconvenient airports, undesirable departure dates -- that seemed designed to discourage customers from claiming their free tickets. But the uproar from disgruntled Hoover users was so great that Maytag's managers back in the U.S. stepped in and fired three top Hoover executives. Maytag also set up a $30 million fund to pay for the promised flights, which, the company says, would be granted to all those who qualified for the promotion.