It’s been a good year for The Entertainer. A few good years, in fact. In the face of the all-consuming credit crunch, the voucher book series seems to have survived almost entirely unscathed. Thanks to its annual format, the ads for this year’s books were locked before the height of the crisis; combine that with a high demand for the book from cash-strapped consumers, and the prospects of a recovery (of sorts) in the advertising market in the tail end of this year, and it seems The Entertainer has got its timing just right.
But in truth, that has always been the case. Conceived in 2000 and created in 2001, The Entertainer has grown as Dubai and the wider region have prospered. The series has thrived off a combination of population growth and a burgeoning hospitality industry, and from humble origins it has grown to encompass three countries, four cities and a number of sectors.
The concept was created by Donna Benton, now owner-manager of the publishing house behind the titles. With an events and marketing background, Benton left her native Melbourne in 2000 for a job that didn’t pan out as expected. But an idea had come to her, and finding herself with little to lose she began to research the concept which would become The Entertainer.
“I was driving one day on Sheikh Zayed Road, and there were so many restaurants with 10 percent off deals and things like that,” she says. “I thought: If you could do a buy-one-get-one-free, and offer enough inspiration to go over to a beach hotel if you lived in Garhoud…. If you could get a complimentary main meal, for instance, that would drive you to travel that distance.
“So I did a feasibility study. I worked at an Internet café typing everything up. I went around and asked a few people. I found an investor, put together a project, went to all the Government offices and thought, ‘If it works it works, and if it doesn’t I can always go and get a job.’”
It was an ambitious project; promotions and discounting were hardly uncommon in the restaurant business, but Benton always planned for The Entertainer to stand out. “From the start I had a policy that we don’t do percentages – it had to be a buy-one-get-one-free, and it had to be valid anytime. I didn’t want a tacky voucher book, I wanted an upmarket book where you could flick to any page and it would always be the same deal.”
THE BUSINESS MODEL. Based on these principles, The Entertainer series has grown to comprise a number of books covering Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, and Qatar. And in Dubai the books have now diversified into different sectors. The main book is now joined by Fine Dining, The Body, and The Kids.
Each book is created around the same format: It’s divided into sections according to the type of outlet in question, then each outlet offers three vouchers on one page of the book. The vouchers are valid for the whole year in question, and are to be pulled out and handed in at time of purchase.
“We try to make it a win-win for both parties,” says Benton. “So it’s a win for the person purchasing the book because they obviously receive discounts, and it’s a win for the merchants who participate because they receive money by getting people through their door. It’s very simplistic, and we try to keep it that way.”
Revenue comes primarily from the sale of the book (Benton estimates this to be 65 percent of the company’s income) and the sale of advertising space inside it. A company can appear in The Entertainer for free simply by agreeing to create and honour a deal, but this would mean only that their vouchers appear; many choose to supplement this with ad space.
“We’ve always kept it that way,” says Benton. “I know a lot of other companies have tried to do vouchers, and they actually charge companies to do it. I believe companies can become greedy, so we try to keep it the same as it was nine years ago and through that comes the loyalty from the merchants.”
However, the rules do seem to bend for the Fine Dining book. Each outlet in this title pays a charge, in return for which they receive a double page spread, like an advertisement.
The company has also found another source of revenue, through clever use of its stock in trade. Custom-made coupon books for large corporate operations such as Etihad, Lloyds Bank and Citi Bank have proved extremely successful. Companies pay for small books of between 25 and 100 vouchers to give away to staff or customers as gifts or rewards for loyalty.
“It’s exactly the same vouchers as in The Entertainer,” says Benton. “The art work doesn’t even get changed. They brand it, and they give it to all their credit card holders for example, and of course then the customer can pay for the deal on that credit card.”
RUNNING TOTAL. The books launch in December each year (just in time for Christmas). This is the major print run, and Benton says the company tries to make it the only one. But if sales are high, extra runs can sometimes become necessary. This year, for instance, the Abu Dhabi books have been a runaway success, and the company was forced to embark on both a second and third print run.
Combined, the company prints between 50,000 and 60,000 copies of its books for the UAE alone, and it is witnessing good growth in the newer markets of Bahrain and Qatar. It’s a huge increase from the first-ever print run of 3,000 books, from which Benton admits, “We learnt a lot.”
“We didn’t shrink wrap the books, and people ripped out the vouchers,” she says. “It’s good though, because you need to make mistakes to further your knowledge.”
These teething problems may be far behind, but it’s not plain sailing for the series nowadays either. In a surprise move, this year Subway refused to accept the vouchers it had placed in the book, displaying posters in the windows of each outlet announcing that it was no longer honouring the coupons.
“I was really surprised with Subway,” admits Benton. “Subway has been one of our clients for the last eight years, and to be honest I’m not quite sure myself what happened. Out of 1,500 outlets you always get one or two where something happens, a small percentage that goes wrong. They’ve always been a great client so there’s no hard feelings.”
While the business may have lost one merchant, every month it recruits more. The annual nature of the publications makes this difficult, but The Entertainer has sidestepped this issue with the help of the Internet. Thanks to a Web site introduced this year, new outlets can provide similar offers to purchasers of the book, and also make use of The Entertainer’s database to invite customers to opening nights or special promotion events.
“We’ve just started moving in an online direction,” says Benton. “It’s exactly the same kind of voucher but you have to buy the book and put a membership code in (which appears in the book). You get five or six different promotions each month, and you print off the vouchers. We have brunches, hotel nights, restaurant openings.”
This online direction may offer some interesting avenues for The Entertainer, but lurking down them may be some potentially unwelcome competitors. Web sites such as PromosME.com, featured in the next article, are offering new challenges to the company’s dominance. But Benton is upbeat.
“Competition is always good,” she says. “At the end of the day, it’s about what the people want. It’s a lot easier said than done to look after 1,500 merchants, making sure that the mechanics are right and that every one of them accepts the buy-one-get-one-free. Yes, we have had a couple of companies try to do similar things, but I believe whoever is the first to do something will always survive.”