Every purchase made with Acorn's new affinity VISA credit card, believed to be the first in the computer industry, will generate Advantage points which can be donated to schools. The Acorn VISA card will be available in January 1995.
ICD, the leading marketing services and consumer research company, is also participating in the Advantage promotion. Schools will be credited with 15 Advantage points for every consumer questionnaire completed by pupils' parents. Schools returning more than 900 surveys can also elect to receive selected Acorn computers.
Peter Talbot, General Manager, Education, at Acorn, said:
"The beauty of Advantage is its simplicity. Parents can give their child a head start by buying a home computer and help their child's school obtain more equipment at the same time, while schools can get free resources when they make standard purchases. Thousands of schools have joined the scheme already and over half a million parents packs have been distributed by schools. As Advantage points can be gained from more and more sources and schools have even more opportunities to gain free educational equipment, we anticipate that nearly all UK schools will soon be Advantage members."Sean Flanagan, Marketing Director at ICD, comments:
"Acorn Advantage is an ideal way for ICD to help local schools and to acquire useful data for consumer companies. Schools and parents know their children will benefit from greater access to curriculum resources so we hope they will respond with vigour! Even the smallest school can benefit from ICD's involvement with Advantage, as gifts can be redeemed for as few as 50 Advantage points, or 4 completed questionnaires."
"When we made the decision to equip the school with Acorn Risc PCs we had no idea that Acorn Advantage was just being launched.Mrs J Meadows, of Halifax, one of the first parents to have donated Advantage points to her local school, Lee Mount Junior School, said:Not only are we already seeing the educational benefits of our 16 new Risc PCs, but we have accrued over 16,000 Advantage points which means our students will be able to take advantage of more educational resources - this time for free. Hopefully we will gather even more points over Christmas if parents buy Acorn computers as presents. We are thinking of redeeming the points for CD ROM drives or a video recorder to improve our multimedia resource. Acorn Advantage is just the kind of promotion schools want!"
"I think Acorn Advantage is a great promotion. I bought an Acorn Learning Curve computer as a birthday gift for my children and now have the added bonus of giving my local primary school the chance to have extra equipment for free. Its good to be able to help the local community."
Additionally, teachers registered on the scheme are eligible to receive discounts on national events, training and conferences, regular free reports on educational and IT issues, magazine subscriptions and educational directories. To receive a free copy of the Acorn Advantage pack please call the Advantage Helpline on 081 673 5455.
Founded in 1978, with 1993 revenues of £:54.3m, Acorn Computers is the premier supplier of IT solutions to UK education and has been the leading provider of 32-bit RISC based personal computers since 1987. Acorn works closely with a strong community of industry partners, users and software developers to provide innovative technology solutions for the education, consumer, publishing and international markets.
The Acorn Computer Group is a holding company for Acorn Computers Limited, Acorn Australia, Acorn New Zealand, Acorn GmbH and Online Media. Acorn Computer Group owns 43% of ARM Ltd. Online Media, a division of the Acorn Computer Group, was launched in 1994 with the mission to design world class, interactive multimedia products.