October 11 2006

BP's mobile voucher campaign

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. The press release for the BP/i-movo service is as follows: Enpocket and i-movo enable groundbreaking mobile voucher campaign for BP Wild Bean Cafés BP launches largest ever secure mobile voucher scheme across 173 UK branches London, October 9, 2006 - Enpocket, the Intelligent Mobile Marketing company, and i-movo have teamed up to launch a groundbreaking mobile marketing campaign for BP that uses mobile vouchers to drive footfall to Wild Bean Cafés. The cross channel promotion invites customers to enter competitions to win SatNav systems and cash prizes. In return, every entrant is sent a voucher by text message for a free Wild Bean Coffee. The unique number within each message is keyed into the payment terminal at one of the 173 BP Connect's across south east England and central Scotland, and the voucher is validated in real-time. Enpocket's technology is being used to run the competitions, send out the vouchers and manage the BP customer database, while i-movo's technology is installed at BP Connect sites to enable the real-time redemption. "This is the first time we have tried such a marketing tool to attract customers to try our Wild Bean coffee. The thing which is really attractive is the realtime nature of the system. This helps us understand the effectiveness of the multiple online and radio advertising campaigns we have invested in to support the promotion and we get to know exactly which customers have redeemed their vouchers, where and when. As the system is secure, the voucher can be used only once so we can reward our customers with really attractive offers without the financial exposure that can be a huge risk with digital voucher distribution, as other companies have found to their cost, " said Richard Smuts, Advertising and Communications Manager for Wild Bean Café. The promotion is being run online, through banners ads on sites such as Multimap.com and theAA.com, through promotions on Heart FM and via posters in store and on BP Connect forecourts. "BP's first mobile voucher campaign represents a significant step for the industry. It will allow BP to create special offers and to deliver them to targeted consumer segments in the form of mobile vouchers," said David Barker, Managing Director, Enpocket." We've teamed up with i-movo as their solution is fast to deploy and uses existing credit card terminal infrastructure, so there is no requirement for additional capital investment." David Tymm, CEO for i-movo Limited said: "BP Retail knows that to stay ahead of competition requires constant product innovation and new ways to deliver real value to customers. i-movo is delighted to be part of this ground-breaking campaign which creates a new reference standard for secure mobile marketing the world over." Although the first campaign is focused on south east England and central Scotland, the Enpocket and i-movo's system is now set up to so it can enable nationwide campaigns for BP and its partners across all BP sites in the UK.