Learn from Loyalty Program Accidents

By John Hennessy


During a holiday promotion for members of its Sparkling Circle loyalty club, Moët Hennessy USA offered one of three “sparkling music mixes” for holiday entertaining.


The offer wasn’t for a CD compilation but let members select and download the compilation. That approach delivered both lower cost for Moet and immediate reward for members.


During a September program offering a free wine bottle stopper, postings of the offer to “free stuff” web sites resulted in more redemptions than Moet planned. This resulted in a PIN code being included in the email for the music offer. That code let Moet track responses and which compilation was chosen.


The PIN code on the song downloads allowed Moet to “keep it within the target audience,” said Anette Kreipke, VP-director of account management at 141 Worldside’s interactive division 141XM that ran the program for Moet.


Moderator’s Comment: What can be learned from runaway success besides ways to limit future runaway successes?


Moet learned the power of information sharing in this internet age. Whether it is the sharing of codes or links to online coupons, if there’s value out
there, there are sites and people who will share it with others.


Viral marketers leverage this kind of sharing. Traditional marketers are sometimes taken by surprise by its scale.


Moet was correct in implementing its holiday tunes promotion with a pass code, to limit downloads and improve tracking. But they would be incorrect not
to learn from their accidental experience with viral marketing.


While they had not planned to give away as many wine stoppers as they did, it happened and, with practice, it could happen again, on their terms and for
the benefit of their brand.

George Anderson – Moderator

BrainTrust

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Bernie Slome
Bernie Slome
18 years ago

After any program is completed, a company must assess what it did well and what can be improved upon. Moet did just that and came upon a more effective program. By limiting the giveaway and requiring a PIN, Moet gave it a bit of exclusivity, thus making their customers feel special. Whether by luck or by design, the second program was a result of analysis.

Mark Lilien
Mark Lilien
18 years ago

Great viral marketers get their message to the target for the least cost. Viral marketing keeps costs minimized. The best viral marketers, in terms of impact per dollar, are entertainment entrepreneurs using www.myspace.com.

Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D.
Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D.
18 years ago

Not being able to predict the consumer response should not keep a company from trying a new promotion. In this era of consumer independence and use of new sources of information, prediction of consumer response is not always accurate. However, if you measure responses of all efforts, the results can be analyzed and the company can learn from every trial program and refine it to make the efforts more successful. By using different password codes, Moet will continue to learn more about different about their program.

Marc Drizin
Marc Drizin
18 years ago

A company provides choice to customers, increasing their satisfaction by letting them customize a particular offering. The use of a tracking device allows the company to ensure the offer was seen as valuable by their customers. Happy customers buy more stuff.

The same company has the good fortune of giving away more premiums than they thought thereby increasing awareness and future usage of their product. Better yet, their offer was substantially enhanced through the use of web-links to other potential markets not included in their original offer, AT NO ADDITIONAL COST. Future customers don’t buy from you if they don’t know about you.

Meeting the needs of current customers and improving the awareness of future customers. I’m sorry, what was the question?

M. Jericho Banks PhD
M. Jericho Banks PhD
18 years ago

As I understand it, the first Moet giveaway was for wine stoppers and had no control mechanism. Operators of “free stuff” websites discovered and then publicized the offer, thereby multiplying Moet’s reach and redemption beyond expectations.

While Moet’s second giveaway was controlled by a PIN code, it seems to me that they perhaps missed an opportunity. If free stuff sites can be counted on to significantly expand the reach of an offer, then that’s free advertising. The key, then, is to design an offer that is both reach-oriented and trackable via return email and/or delivery address. Additionally, in exchange for a small bit of information, these added redemptions could trigger more valuable offers designed to convert certain respondents into customers.