Client

Traditionally, Purina have built trial and penetration of new product development for their pet food brands through sampling and direct mail utilising coupons to existing consumers and prospects.

Whilst effective, this has proved, over time, to be expensive.

Over the past 5 years, the Felix brand has built an enviable online database of consumers who receive regular email communications.

Business Problem

The campaign objectives were two fold:

• To determine the relative effectiveness of e-coupons in driving retail sales.
• To determine how the usage of e-coupons impacts the effectiveness of email marketing.

Solution

30,000 consumers were emailed with an e-coupon as part of the regular email newsletter; 15,000 existing consumers and 15,000 prospects. A control cell (the rest of the standard email send) provided a benchmark.

Two coupon values were tested; 50p off multi-pack of Felix Pouch and £1 off multi-pack of Felix Pouch. The creative development of the campaign was within the context of the wider ‘Officially Delicious’ campaign.

The creative was based around the ongoing Officially Delicious campaign and the coupon provided as a celebration of the fact that over 5 million cats enjoy Felix – a Felix party! This was to ensure that the coupon was not devaluing the brand, but continued to build brand values.

Couponstar’s ecouponing technology platform allowed a user friendly process whereby consumers could conveniently print a unique and secure e-coupon. The eBricks™ technology platform used to deliver this functionality was invisible to consumers who simply experienced a “one click print.”

The Couponstar platform ensured that each ecoupon printed was unique and traceable back to the email type, consumer category and down to the individual consumer. A secure online reporting interface presenting daily results was accessible 24/7.

The e-coupon was use-once-only when cleared at the point of redemption and the ecoupon incorporated the highest levels of security available to prevent fraud including device-level identification to limit prints, preventing the consumer from downloading the coupon as a file and encrypting the data at every turn incorporating 128-bit encryption. The technology allowed for a 30-day rolling expiration date printed on the face of the Felix e-coupon to call consumers to action.

The solution also allowed for a linear EAN barcode to be printed on the face of the ecoupon which was fully integrated within the participating retailers’ POS system.

Finally, Couponstar was fully integrated with Nestle chosen Coupon Clearance House who scanned the unique PDF417 barcode printed on the face of the coupon allowing for coupon redemption tracking and reporting down to an individual level.

Results

• The campaign was deemed an outstanding success.
• 30,000 consumers mailed
• 89% delivery
• 57% open rate (compared to 37% open rate on standard emails) 50% above forecast
• 83% click rate to claim the coupon (66% for 50p coupon) 149% above forecast
• 38% in store redemption 150% above forecast
• Over 400 consumers forwarded the mail to a friend 112% above forecast
• Only 2.5% of all coupons redeemed were duplicates of an originally printed coupon. This is significantly lower than other e-coupon studies in the UK who report a 30% to 40% mal-redemption rate.
  

Benefits

Whilst the results on their own are impressive, the most outstanding figure is that pound for pound, online e-couponing was calculated as being over 150% more cost effective in generating coupon redemptions than any other medium including direct mail.

Disclaimer: Purina & Felix logos is property of Purina. Purina & Felix logos are used simply for demonstrational purposes.