The Mirror is First Major UK Brand to Put Full Marketing Muscle Behind Cashback Shopping

I am delighted to report MirrorCashback.com has gone live today with the Mirror newspaper, which has 3,597,000 readers (source: NRS), promoting the cashback portal with a quarter of the front page and an eight page supplement. My heartfelt congratulations to both Trinity Mirror and our client V A C Media, who are powering the website.

The site is launching with exclusive voucher codes, discounts, and over £6,000 worth of prizes from the likes of Littlewoods Direct, Currys and AlphaRooms

Mirror Cashback is also being promoted prominently on Mirror.co.uk which has millions of unique visitors a month; there are banner ads and articles throughout the website, including three links to the cashback site above the fold (screenshot below).

This is the first time a major brand has lent its weight across all platforms to the concept of cashback shopping despite it having existed in the UK for over six years since my colleague at Azam Marketing, Stuart Reader, launched the first cashback site in July 2002 called Oliphaunt.

MirrorCashback.com is a collaborative effort with has involved dozens of people over many weeks. With some previous clients, I have done my bit, but the other parties involved may have been lacking in terms of the enthusiasm, efficiency, and attention to detail successful projects require… but this has been completely different. This initiative has been the most tiring thing I have ever done in my life, and I have been fortunate if I’ve had a chance to sleep more than four hours on many nights, but it has also been the most enjoyable venture I have ever worked on. And that is because it has been such a delight to work so many terrific people at V A C Media, Trinity Mirror and Azam Marketing. I have never come across such dedicated folk in my life: for example, one of the V A C Media team members must have worked something like 40 hours straight over the last few days and had to be torn away from his computer!

I’d like to publically thank the following from Trinity Mirror’s headquarters in Canary Wharf, who have been the most remarkable people I’ve ever worked with: Amina Abdillahi, Tim Anderson, Steve Anglesey, David Black, Mihiri Bonney, Ric Bradley, Victoria Ellis, David Emin, Shana Hills, Matt Kelley, Simon Moore, Kerry O’Connor, Elaine Quirke and Yvon Nolle. From the V A C Media side, the following and many more have gone way beyond the call of duty to complete this project and I feel privileged to be able to call them my colleagues: Dawn Dalton, Louise Goldstein, Sinead Hernen, Ather Mehdi and Janine Sinclair.

You may wonder why much of the exposure in the supplement in today’s paper consists of Affiliate Window merchants: that is because, while most of the other major networks did not respond to our emails or took a few days to get back to us, Affiliate Window were there for us at every step of the way, working late into the evenings to arrange promotions for their merchants in the Mirror newspaper and website. Their unwavering co-operation has reinforced my view of them being of one of my favourite affiliate networks.

You may read the official press release here: Daily Mirror Launches MirrorCashback.com.

If you are or represent a quality merchant with a high EPC affiliate program and would like enhanced coverage on Mirror Cashback and V A C Media’s 69-odd other cashback websites in UK in exchange for higher commissions, voucher codes and prize donations, you are welcome to email janine [at] vacmedia.com

Further information about owning your own cashback site can be found here: white-label cashback website proposition.

I’ll end with a picture of me reading the supplement in today’s Mirror. Now off to have a kip for an hour and then back to work!

Stop Press: we have been given permission by Trinity Mirror to publish the eight page pull-out in the Daily Mirror. You can view it in PDF format here: Daily Mirror Cashback Shopping Supplement.