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1984 Shell Make Money Game Created And Supplied By Don Marketing
Shell Bruce’s Lucky Deal Promotional Game Created And Supplied By Don Marketing
Contact email address for the website owner, John Donovan (above): [email protected]
Wikipedia is not the only Internet brand name corrupted by the use of unethical people using online aliases. The following Guardian newspaper articles about the fake reviews plaguing Amazon are worth reading.
The same basic fake review problem undermines confidence in the authenticity of customer reviews for all Internet business and all products sold online. The content of all Wikipedia articles having a commercial dimension and all online product reviews are suspect because editors/reviewers can hide their identity. Hence the online businesses springing up offering a service to sanitise/enhance Wikipedia articles and/or mass manufacture fake reviews, sometimes for counterfeit sub-standard products.
Contact email address for the website owner, John Donovan (above): [email protected]
Wikipedia is not the only Internet brand name corrupted by the use of unethical people using online aliases. The following Guardian newspaper articles about the fake reviews plaguing Amazon are worth reading.
The same basic fake review problem undermines confidence in the authenticity of customer reviews for all Internet business and all products sold online. The content of all Wikipedia articles having a commercial dimension and all online product reviews are suspect because editors/reviewers can hide their identity. Hence the online businesses springing up offering a service to sanitise/enhance Wikipedia articles and/or mass manufacture fake reviews, sometimes for counterfeit sub-standard products.
John Donovan, a co-founder of promotional games company Don Marketing: Photo taken in 2015.
By John Donovan
In 1979, the company I co-founded, *Don Marketing, created and supplied promotional games that were used to promote petrol sales on the forecourts of all major petrol brands in the UK, including Shell.
In June 1981, we moved into a direct contractual relationship with Shell as a result of a presentation I made at Shell-Mex House in The Strand, the then London HQ of Shell UK Limited.
I put forward a proposal for Shell to launch a legal version of a promotional game called Make Money that Shell had abandoned in the 1960‘s out of concern that it was in breach of UK lottery laws.
Extracts from the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare” (now available on Amazon websites globally)Extract begins
LEADING THE WORLD IN PROMOTIONAL GAMES
The above bold claim, made in numerous whole page advertisements in trade magazines, was legitimate. To the best of my knowledge, no company before or since has devised such a wide range of innovative promotional games.
I authored articles about promotional games for magazines such as Marketing Week and have acted as an expert witness in court cases relating to promotional games.
We had business dealings with the major US TV networks. Following negotiations in New York and London with NBC Senior Vice President, Steve Sohmer, I signed an agreement for a joint NBC/Don Marketing project with Ray Timothy, President of NBC Television. Lars H Lenck, President of Don Marketing USA, a former Chevron analyst, was also a signatory to the contract.
A small sampling of the thousands of retailers and major global brands that were all clients of the worlds No1 Promotional Games company, Don Marketing.
Whitbread Scoop the Pools promotion.
Approx size: 21 x 30 cm portrait 
Don Marketing co-founder John Donovan photographed in October 2020 with a Whitbread “SCOOP THE POOLS” poster.
Nabisco Shredded Wheat Space Invaders Promotion.
Approx size: 22 x 30 cm portrait.
Don Marketing co-founder John Donovan photographed in October 2020 with a Nabisco Shredded Wheat Space Invaders poster.
Extracts from the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare” (now available on Amazon websites globally)In 1979, our company, Don Marketing supplied promotional games that were used to promote petrol sales on the forecourts of most petrol brands in the UK, including Shell.
In 1981, we moved into a contractual relationship with Shell as a result of a presentation I made at Shell-Mex House in The Strand, the then London HQ of Shell UK Limited.
I put forward a proposal for Shell to launch a legal version of a promotional game called Make Money that Shell had abandoned in the 1960‘s out of concern that it was in breach of UK lottery laws.
Colin Lloyd recalls his favourite campaigns.
Extracts
The golden age
Other classics include the Cadbury’s Golden Egg promotion, which had thousands of people digging up great tranches of the English countryside trying to discover Golden Eggs that Triangle had buried. Today the environmentalists would pull their hair out. And the free piggy banks from Gales Honey, put together in a mental asylum in Devon, did not look like any animal that I have seen.
Shell Make Money was my number one, and could be unbelievably successful in today’s climate. The Andrex Puppy appeal from my agency broke new ground for that brand and continues today in various incarnations. Heinz led the way with charity promotions, and its incredibly successful Win a Car a Day. Reputations were made, and sometimes lost, in two great decades.
John Donovan, managing director of Don Marketing, an agency specialising in promotional games, says he has supplied more than a billion game pieces without any problems. He counts Shell's Make Money game (said to have raised sales by 25%) and the Great Guinness Challenge (which boosted sales by 30%) among his biggest successes.
Despite Shell making the agency an out-of-court settlement of £60,000 over the use-without-consent issue, Alfred Donovan has recently set up a 'Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group' to bring attention to what he believes is Shell's misconduct in relation to several promotions the company has run.
Many games have had spectacular results - for instance the Shell Make Money game in 1984, which is claimed to have lifted sales by more than 25 per cent...
In total, Don Marketing has issued three High Court writs and a County Court proceeding against Shell, alleging wrongful use of retail promotions developed by Don Marketing. Shell has already settled one of the three writs out of court.
JUNE 1993
Picture Caption: Having shelved its Collect & Select promotion, Shell’s 1991 Star Trek scratch card campaign featured the first Star Trek series. It coincided with Star Trek’s 25th anniversary, Paramount launching a new series and BBC screening the original 1979 episodes
EXTRACTS FROM THE ARTICLE
But while there may have been a few disasters, there have also been countless successes. John Donovan, managing director of Don Marketing, an agency specialising in promotional games, says he has supplied more than a billion game pieces without any problems. He counts Shell’s Make Money game (said to have raised sales by 25%) and the Great Guinness Challenge (which boosted sales by 30%) among his biggest successes.
ARTICLE BEING ADDED TO OUR ONLINE ARCHIVE
31 May 1984
EXTRACTS:
It is appropriate that the American term for promotions like the much vaunted and widely imitated Shell Make Money campaign, aimed specifically at getting customers to the point of sale, should be ‘traffic building’. The amount of extra traffic built at Shell stations at the expense of its less imaginative rivals has, most observers believe, made the £2m investment in the promotion look like money well spent.
Such can be the power of the game card. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that this technique of sales promotion has been around for some time – Shell first used it in the 60s.
The 1984 version of the famous Shell Make Money campaign has set alight the battle among the petroleum companies, and could lead to a renewal of the sort of promotional campaigns that were so familiar in the late 1960s.
Don Marketing directors from the left, John Donovan (Chairman), Roger Sotherton (Marketing Director) and John Chambers, Managing Director. Photograph taken at Don Marketing Chelmsford UK offices in 1984, with Shell Singapore Make Money poster in background.
Don Marketing Managing Director John Chambers photographed on Shell forecourt during the spectacularly successful Shell Make Money game in 1984.
Fast flowing Don: Marketing Magazine 16 February 1984
Shell Make Money full page advert: Daily Express 21 February 1984
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our non-profit websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
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