Drive Incremental Retail Revenue using Secure Mobile Coupons (bCODE) | MMA Global

Drive Incremental Retail Revenue using Secure Mobile Coupons (bCODE)

June 8, 2009
Submitted by bCODE

Title: Drive Incremental Retail Revenue using Secure Mobile Coupons (Ubiquitously on SMS)

Brand:IKEA

Category:Direct Marketing via SMS

Agency:89 Degrees

Vendor:bCODE Inc.

Region:Seattle, WA

Timeline:November 2007 to present



Mechanism:

• Consumers text to shortcode 30364 to join IKEA Mobile

• Shortcode is advertised in-store, on mailed free-standing insert (FSI) and other advertising inserts, as well as through radio promotions, email blasts and store web page.

• Members of IKEA Mobile are sent Member-Exclusive secure SMS offers up to twice monthly.

• The secure codes are sent via plain-text SMS, so there is near-100% coverage on mobile phones. No MMS, WAP-Push or Data-plans required. There are over 1 trillion codes per offer, so the system is effectively delivering a “bar code” to a mobile phone, but without using barcodes (therefore called a “bCODE”).

• Customers are driven by these attractive offers to visit the store to redeem and make purchases. There was an increase in traffic to the store, which was attributed to the offers.

• Upon visiting the IKEA store, customers “scan” their bCODE secure SMS offer at one of three bCODE MediaPlane touch-screen interactive scanners, select the desired offer and print a paper coupon to use at Check-Out.

• Scanners are located in prominent in-store locations such as the main entrance area and IKEA Restaurant.

• Scan and redemption data are person-specific, location-specific and offer-specific, and is accessible in real-time online. Rather than showing a code on an SMS message to a cashier, the bCODE solution “closes the loop” and verifiably tracks the coupon redemption process.

 

Offers:

• Each offer is a time-sensitive “basket-of-goods” offer that contains multiple desired offers, selectable on the bCODE MediaPlane touchscreen

• Examples include 20% off special products, or class of products, restaurant food offers, $X off certain purchase size, etc

• All touch-screen interactions are also captured in real-time; in the future, up sell opportunities exist.


Campaign Management:

• Offers can be configured online, and deployed in real-time

• All reporting data available online in real-time, and available for CSV exports

• All touch-screen interactions are Adobe Flash compatible, allowing for a variety of rich multimedia interactions in-store

• Adobe Flash content are updateable in real-time via online tools


Security:

• Each bCODE has trillions of combinations, this means every bCODE is unique

• The uniqueness of the bCODE, as opposed to many SKU-type code sent via SMS, can actually recognize which person redeemed the offer, ie. The 20% Off mobile coupon John has on his phone is a different code to the 20% Off mobile coupon on Kate’s phone. This is very different than, and significantly more powerful to, many other solutions in the market

• The uniqueness also ensures each coupon can only be used once and prevents fraud. The Security aspect of the bCODE mobile coupon allows high-value offers to be sent without worrying about duplication

• The printed coupon, which can contain a 1D barcode that is backwards compatible with existing POS systems, is used for scanning and/or cash register reconciliation

• The printed coupon also allows the retailers to measure the exact amount of sales generated by the bCODE mobile coupon system


Influencing Purchase Decisions:

• These mobile coupon campaigns have been demonstrated to be behaviour-changing. That is, use of the bCODE solution actually drove consumers into the store and increased revenues are directly attributed to bCODE coupon redemption platform.

• The touch-screen interactions provide a timely opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell the customer on relevant and personally-profiled additional offers

• Customers that have scanned a bCODE mobile coupon on average spends 50% - 150% more than a customer that hasn’t scanned.

• Unlike many other solutions where an alphanumeric code is being typed into POS system, the bCODE Mobile Coupon solution engages the customer AT THE BEGINNING / DURING THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE, whilst decision making is still happening, and NOT AT THE END, when decisions have already been made. This significantly increases consumer participation, influence on purchase behavior and provide a personalized touch-screen experience and support advanced behavior profiling simply not possible at check-out


Results and ROI:

• Over 23,000 members have joined IKEA Mobile at the Seattle location since inception. The mere presence of the bCODE MediaPlane attracts numerous sign-ups per month at this one location

• There have been more than 15,000 bCODE scans / offer redemptions to date

• Key demographic of users is Female 18-49, with a secondary demo of families.

• Consumers love the bCODE “iPhone-like” user experience

• Usability and user experience is key to consumer adoption and response rates %

• Campaigns average 5% - 10% response rates. Specifically, the campaigns are sent out at times where the recipients are not in the store. This percentage shows the percentage of consumers that have been driven to visit the store as a result of the attractive mobile coupon offers.

• During Q4 2008, the bCODE mobile coupon platform generated six figures in sales that were directly tied to IKEA Mobile member shopping in the Seattle store. This figure is growing on an average of 10% every month. The “Closed-Loop” nature of bCODE’s scanning solution allows this type of sales statistics to be tracked down to per-customer and per-offer level.