Dannonomics

Running for less than 3 months from August to October, the new promotion from Dannon in the US has an interesting mechanic to encourage trial, reward loyalty and incentivise cross sell.

Entitled Dannonomics, the promotion promises “Delicious yogurt in your fridge. Money back in your wallet” and rewards customers with money off coupons in exchange for evidence of Dannon product purchases. 

The actual mechanism for recognising purchases is relatively laborious, requiring consumers to send in retailer till receipts with evidence of the product purchase, or where not directly identified on the receipt, to include product lids.  Obviously this could have been better implemented using some form on on-pack proof of purchase coupon or code, but the really interesting piece is the reward mechanism itself.

Like the Kellogs promotion in the UK, this promotion requires a number of purchases in order to qualify – not a single on-pack discount or two for one deal – but instead an overall value which requires multiple purchases.  This helps to encourage habit forming behaviours and lessens the appeal of the promotion to simple price switchers.

The value of the reward has also been tuned to encourage not just increased frequency of purchase, but also cross brand purchase.  The more brands included within a claim, the richer the reward provided.  On a single product, Dannonomics provides a 20% discount, rewarding $15 of purchase with a $3 reward.  However this increases to almost 40% back where 3 or more brands are purchased, rewarding $40 of spend with $15 back.

It’s not clear from the promotion initially what the reward value is, but looking at the fine print the reward consists of money off coupons for other Dannon products – further driving consumer spend across the Dannon brands.

A nice feature, and increasingly becoming a “staple” for all brand sites is the Share and Send to a Friend functions.  These allow the promotion to be published on mainstream social sites like MySpace, twitter and facebook as well as bookmark sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious.

According to Michael Neuwirth from Dannon, Americans consume “less than a quarter of the yogurt” eaten per capita in European countries, so there is obviously room to improve and a strategy that looks to increase frequency of purchase and drive trial across categories seems a good approach.  With a reported 67% of US consumers also planning to use coupons more during this downturn, the reward mechanism obviously taps into this increased demand.

However, as promotions go, it has little longevity, either in being able to track ongoing purchase behaviour, or in encouraging ongoing brand loyalty once the promotion is over. 

The loyalty mechanism also does little to increase brand engagement – yes it’s rewarding back in category, but this could work harder to also tie into the overall brand proposition.  For Dannon, their proposition “Today. For Tomorrow” focuses on the benefits that yogurt can bring within a healthier lifestyle.  The promotion could have included rewards which aligned within this proposition such as money off for sports, gyms or other health and lifestyle related areas.  Helping to reinforce that yogurt helps to promote long term health.

As an example of this, the Great Rewards Round Up promotion from Anchor Butter in the UK has an on-pack collector scheme which sees consumers collecting “cows” (and naming them) into a field to build up a herd which can then be exchanged for outdoors related and cow themed rewards.  The whole programme is looking to tie into the “Free Range Butter Company” proposition where the cow’s are “free to roam”, and hence need to be collected together as part of the scheme.

The Dannonomics promotion gets an overall lean forward rating of 3 with the weaker areas being that is has no real longevity and creates little excitement.  It also scores lower on brand alignment – whilst recognising that both the earning and redemption are all within the brand, there is little to deepen the relationship with the brand or reinforce the proposition.  That said, what is unique about this promotion is how it encourages cross-sell within all Dannon products – something which many brands find hard to achieve.

	Score (0-5)
Encourages Acquisition	5
Drives Repeat Purchase	4
Programme Longevity	1
Brand Alignment	2
Creates Excitement	2
Enables Interaction	3
Overall Lean Forward Score	3

Dunkin’ Donuts – Keep it Coolatta

The new Keep it Coolatta campaign from Dunkin’ Donuts is really very lean forward.  The campaign is the latest promotion to be run through their popular facebook group which currently has almost 830k fans.

Rather than using facebook simply as an extension of their offline campaigns, the Keep it Coolatta campaign integrates fully with the usage of facebook.

The image above shows the basic steps for the campaign, but this essentially consists of buying a Coolatta, taking of pic of yourself with it, posting it to your profile and winning rewards. 

This is a really nice way of creating advocacy and essentially gaining access to friends of friends while helping brand advocates to feel rewarded and recognised.  It’s completely non-threatening – you don’t need to provide friends details, or sign them up, just post a pic of yourself to win and your friends will naturally see it.

It also demonstrates some really good thinking about how to join offline and online campaigns and when viewed in context with their separate new service Dunkin Run which allows people to manage coffee runs via mobile or web, it demonstrates that they really get this media. 

What these campaigns show - as well as the other work Dunkin Donuts are doing with twitter and youTube - is that they are looking to facilitate a connection and relationship between friends whilst not appearing to be trying to own it – a key requirement that some brands still don’t get.

Whilst the Keep it Coolatta campaign does not in itself have longevity, it would appear that the continued promotion to their fans through innovative campaigns provides an an element of dial-up and dial-down within their social media platform – keeping consumers engaged but not overwhelmed and helping to create a longer term relationship.

Loyalty doesn’t need a points programme to be successful – what it needs is a consistent approach to attract, retain and motivate consumers.  It would appear that Dunkin’ Donuts are doing this very well and learning fast.

This programme gets an overall lean forward rating of 4 with the weaker area being that it doesn’t have a totally cohesive pull though in terms of longevity that really links all their activities.  This point aside though, this is a great campaign.

	Score (0-5)
Encourages Acquisition	5
Drives Repeat Purchase	4
Programme Longevity	3
Brand Alignment	4
Creates Excitement	4
Enables Interaction	5
Overall Lean Forward Score	4

Warburtons – Save Tons on Lunch

Loyalty works well on products which have a high purchase frequency and you don’t get much higher than bread.  For many, a daily essential, it’s probably also one of the most automatic and least differentiated purchases.

So Warburtons latest promotion is very interesting.  The basis of the promotion is the entry of an on-pack code which then results in an instant and randomly selected discount coupon.  Strictly speaking this doesn’t constitute a loyalty programme as there is literally no longevity in the programme – this is though a very good sales promotion and could have easily been an even better loyalty programme.

The programme theme, “Save Tons on Lunch” fits well in two areas.  Firstly it ties well into the product and a product use occasion - lunch; this means people taking part will also naturally be thinking about the consumption of it.  The second reason is that it links into the current economic climate with people looking to make everyday savings and making your own lunch is certainly one way.

The programme is very well promoted using strong disruptive packaging so this will help to ensure the programme is noticed and drive interest and acquisition.

A clever feature of this promotion is they have linked into a number of other well known brands such as Anchor, Walkers, Heinz and Muller – these are brands which are well known and respected and so don’t cheapen the promotion in any way, as well as working well with the product - beans on toast - or the occasion - crisps / yogurt for lunch.

Unfortunately the product code doesn’t link to the actual product purchased so you have to nominate which product you actually purchase.  Not a major concern, but it may result in less accurate campaign data.

The coupons are managed by Couponstar and are printed directly from the consumers PC.  This works well and is tightly integrated into the whole site.

The rewards themselves are obviously just coupons and whilst this will be attractive to a certain audience, this may not actually be brand loyalists and instead is likely to be more brand switchers.  Although a full loyalty programme may not have been appropriate for this brand, I think a scheme like the Kelloggs one which allowed for a small number of purchases to result in a free product would have added longevity and encouraged collection and thus repeat purchase.

There is also a risk that the coupon provided will not be attractive as you cannot select it.  If the first coupon you get doesn’t work for you, then you’re unlikely to come back for more.

One great thing about the reward however is that it isn’t a disconnected sales promotion such as win a holiday or £50k – instead the reward is linked directly back into the product and the usage occasion.  This is really important in attracting the right kind of consumers – the ones which will continue to purchase the product in the future.

A nice feature is that within the website, there is a scrolling list of winners.  This works well as it indicates that other people are taking part and shows what they have won, helping to motivate other visitors to take part and making it feel less isolated.

Overall, this is a really good promotion and gets a Lean Forward rating of 3.  It has clean creative, with a great theme that runs through the promotion and rewards.  It even has an element of interactivity with the scrolling list of winners – connecting consumers to their peers.  If the programme just had some longevity it would be fantastic.

	Score (0-5)
Encourages Acquisition	3
Drives Repeat Purchase	3
Programme Longevity	2
Brand Alignment	5
Creates Excitement	3
Enables Interaction	2
Overall Lean Forward Score	3

Sure for Men – Ashes Tickets

Sure for Men have a new promotion offering free tickets to the Ashes.  The programme works using an on-pack code which is entered into the website for a chance to win tickets as part of a prize draw.

The promotion ties nicely into the Sure brand promise of “24 hour protection” with a prize draw every 24 hours and given the sporting element of cricket, it is obviously positioned with an active reward – albeit as a spectator.

There may be a potential issue with the reward itself however as although there has been increased focus on cricket recently with the Ashes and Twenty20, it still doesn’t attract the following of other sports.  For example, TV audience viewing figures for cricket were at their maximum when the Ashes contest in 2005 attracted 4.1m.  In contrast coverage of the England versus South Africa final in the 2007 Rugby World Cup attracted the highest viewing figures for a single programme in the UK that year with nearly 17 million tuning in.

This more niche following may suppress participation to some degree and so acquisition will be lower, however those it does attract will probably be passionate about the sport and this will help Sure position itself within this.

The prize draw itself it also interesting as this isn’t a category you can necessarily create additional purchases in.  Unlike a soft drink, Sure is something that will last a while and unless you bring forward purchases, there is little reason or opportunity to buy another one in the short term.  This means a draw every 24 hours works well on the initial code entry, but then you know you’re missing a number of other chances to win as every day passes.  Combined with not winning on the first entry this may re-enforce the idea of not being able to achieve it and lower repeat entry.

The website is functional in terms of code entry, and there is an exclusive blog allowing you to get regular updates and information on upcoming matches.  Again, this is content for die-hard cricket fans so may have little appeal even to a wider sporting audience. 

Interestingly, for such a fan orientated website, there is no ability to interact and I think this is a big mistake.  Having attracted a passionate but small audience, it seems strange not to have allowed them to interact and discuss, with Sure facilitating this conversation.

In summary, it’s a good promotion for cricket fans and if it’s designed to just acquire these then it would seem to work well.  With the opportunity missed for interaction and the possible disappointment with the way the prize draw works, this promotion gets a Lean Forward score of 2.6.

	Score (0-5)
Encourages Acquisition	3
Drives Repeat Purchase	2
Programme Longevity	3
Brand Alignment	4
Creates Excitement	3
Enables Interaction	0
Overall Lean Forward Score	2.6

Kelloggs Free Box of Cereal

Kelloggs are running a new promotion which provides a free pack of cereal for 3 purchases.  On the surface this appears to be more classic sales promotion than loyalty, but what isn’t immediately evident from the packaging is that this is actually a Coinks powered promotion.

Coinks are a provider of points programmes to brands and have a centralised points currency and reward selection which brands buy into.  This means that when entering an on-pack code, whilst it can indeed be used to redeem for a free box of cereal it can also be used in combination with other points from other products to redeem for a wider selection of rewards.

Coinks provides the ability for a brand to customise the site, both in terms of creative as well as the initial reward selection presented, however in all cases it is still recognisable that it is a Coinks powered site and this is obviously part of the strategy.

In the case of this Kelloggs promotion, the branding is actually less Kelloggs and more Coinks.  When compared to a site such as Cadburys Fingers who have full branding it would appear that they aren’t in it for the long term – using the site more as a quick and easy redemption scheme than a deeper link into the Coinks proposition.

There is however a potential danger with a Coinks powered promotion and that is that Coinks itself is the loyalty programme and Kelloggs in this case is the brand that currently offers an earning opportunity.  When the promotion ends for Kelloggs there is a danger that so does the loyalty.

On the brighter side this promotion is good in that unlike more traditional sales promotions such as buy one get one free or 2 for 1, this doesn’t offer immediate gratification.  It requires the consumer to actually purchase the product a number of times, driving repeat purchase at full price rather than giving away free product with a single purchase.

It is also good in that the reward is aligned to the brand – in fact it is the brand – and that it provides an opportunity for cross-sale, allowing consumers to choose another product if they want, driving trial across all products.  Unlike many in the market offering cash prize draws, this promotion is strongly linked to the brand itself meaning it is more likely to attract brand loyalists.

What it does lack however is any real longevity for Kelloggs.  The reward as promoted is low value and lacks any uniqueness or excitement.  This means its unlikely to attract kids (and the pester power this brings) or indeed “collectors” who like branded goods.  Whilst Coinks does provide a wider selection of rewards, these are evident within the packaging and so acquisition volumes may be suppressed.

In summary, it’s good in that it drives repeat purchase and is on-brand in a rewards sense, but weak in its overall ability to excite and engage.  In all a Lean Forward Loyalty rating of 2.

	Score (0-5)
Encourages Acquisition	2
Drives Repeat Purchase	4
Programme Longevity	3
Brand Alignment	4
Creates Excitement	1
Enables Interaction	0
Overall Lean Forward Score	2.3