BP is using digital vouchers sent to mobile phones to drive customers to their Wild Bean Cafes. The vouchers are validated in real time at the tills in the 173 outlets. Vouchers are the holy grail of managed, accountable promotional activity and support astonishing levels of targeting and customer segmentation. The UK has been highly resistant to vouchers - unlike the US - but this direct-to-mobile capability could unlock vouchering: to sighs of relief from digital marketers.
At IRTowers we're great fans of vouchering and - when taken in conjunction with local services, directories and savvy targeting - there's a massive untapped opportunity for the UK... as soon as there's a mechanism to distance vouchers from the dowdy, poor image in customer's minds. Vouchers aren't aspirational - clipped, curling strips of newspaper jammed into the purse and fumbled with at the checkout as the queue behind tuts collectively... Still, we all love a "deal", and having something relevant, special, targeted and easy delivered to our phones could prove to be the state change in vouchering.
The new service, from i-movo (a joint venture between digital house Conchango and the CEO, David Tymm) has managed to snag a great client in BP: the cafes are located in service stations around the UK and so are frequented by a mobile clientele facing limited options for coffee stops. The value of a cup of coffee to BP could be immense: leaving aside the £2 or so for the coffee it has an associated tank of fuel and add-on sales in the forecourt shop. All for the cost of a text message and a small discount on coffee (or, go on, that oh-so-tempting pecan danish...).
The vouchers will be sent to customer who request them, based upon banner and other 'traditional' advertising.
At IRTowers, however, we'd like to see this develop into more of an alerting service based around location. An example would be a text while on the M6, say, to note which service station is a BP franchise and thereby tempt the driver to skip intermediate service stations to take their custom to BP. Not that we in any way condone checking text messages while driving, of course.
To date this "loyalty" is earned by familiarity with the link between service station operators and the petrol, food and other franchises on site. Drivers also have a certain preference based on the reward systems in use (eg the Nectar card for BP service stations). Not all drivers, though, will have spent as many hours on the M6 as your Editor, pondering matters of loyalty and preference - and caffeine. The prize is to affect customers' behaviours on a daily basis and have a more direct link than above-the-line marketing between spend and custom.
Provided that these vouchers remain opt-in and by request then they are bound to increase in popularity. If they turn into promotional, generic SMS spam then the interesting commercial case for vouchering will be damaged.
Ian Jindal.
"this article first appeared on Internet Retailing .net magazine and is reproduced in full by permission. © http://www.internetretailing.net/ 2006”
