Yeah, to show how clueless your mobile analyst is, remember me telling you year after year, how location-based advertising is a losing propotion? Well, here is the exception that proves the rule. The best mobile ad campaign I've yet seen.
Ashutosh Srivastava the CEO of Mindshare was speaking at the MMA Forum here in Vietnam today where I was co-chairing the event with Rohit Dadwal. Ashutosh gave example of a mobile ad campaign that a sporting shoes store chain, Meat Pack in Guatemala, had just run. It was called 'hijack'. The idea was, to hijack customers from competitor stores. Meat Pack customers had to pre-register. Then Meat Pack had gone and geo-location positioned the stores of all of their competitors. When a registered Meat Pack customer went into a competitor store, they would receive a timed discount offer. The offer starts at 100% discount, and starts to 'count down' so a moment later, the discount is only 99%, then 98%, then 97% etc - this drives customers quickly to the nearest Meat Pack store, so if you arrive and you have 18% left of the discount, that is the discount you get today on your purchase of shoes at Meat Pack.
In one week in Guatemala, Meat Pack stole 600 paying customers from competitors, using mobile. The top discount achieved was 89%. Here is the video to the campaign.
Maybe they stole 600 customers. Or maybe 600 customers just gamed the system to get discounts they would otherwise not have gotten. The people who used the promotion had to pre-register, and it is likely that they knew about the promotion, including the time factor. All they had to do was purposely go into a competing store, wait for the offer and then go to Meat Pack and cash in thier discount. If they were smart, the would pick a competitor that is phsycially cose to a Meat Pack site so that they could maximize thier discount.
You see stolen customers. I see lower margins for no real revenue increase. Potato. Potahto.
Posted by: Jim Mathison | October 23, 2013 at 01:26 PM
Hi Jim
Fair point. I would totally agree if this was a copycat done dozens of times in that market, then yes, there would be kids gaming the system. And the numbers would be massively bigger than 600 customers. But in terms of getting your customers to appreciate the value you deliver, this is FAR better than any TV ad or banner ad etc. Potato Potahto haha :-) I have not seen any other campaign so far, that was able to steal customers from inside rival stores..
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | October 23, 2013 at 02:13 PM
@Tomi
Having youngsters running on sneakers from your competitor's shop to yours? On your sneakers?
Maybe you have not yet thought about all ramifications.
Posted by: winter | October 23, 2013 at 06:35 PM
Tomi,
Any word on nuts and bolts [workings - especially indoors]? In app notifications? iPeople / iDevices only?
Shame they can't [or is there a way now?] geo-detect 'all' customers [on any phone] and send them an SMS [with deal & expiry or similar]
Posted by: Henry Sinn | October 23, 2013 at 09:09 PM
I'm calling bullshit on this.
Can GPS even pinpoint you that accurately indoors?
Did it generate any buzz at all before the case study came out?
The video is from 2012. Has the campaign been repeated?
Posted by: Dan Calladine | October 25, 2013 at 10:18 AM
Fun campaign but check out SMS Life Saver in Sweden: http://www.smslivraddare.se
Similar concept but you get volunteer first responders helping with demand for emergency medical assistance:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/10/23/how-swedens-new-text-message-plan-is-saving-cardiac-arrest-victims/
if the Red Cross took on the project it could be a very effective marketing campaign helping them give back to US citizens who are so generous to their cause with their SMS donations.
Posted by: David Doherty | October 29, 2013 at 06:37 PM
Check this Gillette venus social/ mobile/ m-com campaign. #tagtheweather
http://youtu.be/8HoA6IhBhyw
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