Date: 2018/11/30

Introducing the First Ever Single-Brand Rewards Programme in South Africa – Royco Rewards

Think of Rewards or Loyalty Programmes, and immediately your mind goes to the retail store brands, like Clicks or Dis-Chem. Why have we not yet seen a loyalty programme rewarding customers for their regular purchase of a single brand? Because, historically there has been the big challenge of proving that the shopper actually bought the product in order to reward them, especially for brands enjoyed by the mass-market of South Africa.

Today, through the collaboration of client and marketing specialists Mobitainment, ARC South Africa, and Asakhane, we are proud to say that we have beat that challenge by enabling smart technology…

Introducing South Africa’s first ever single-brand rewards programme for Royco…

Royco, the much-loved soups, sauces and marinades: Royco Rewards… a multi-platform, mobile-first, always-on rewards programme that allows consumers to accumulate airtime which can be redeemed at any time.

Designed to create a direct communication channel with its consumers to keep Royco top of mind, in preparation for their stokvel’s bulk buying season at year end, but also for individual purchases all year round.

Offering their channel of choice (interchangeably) on high-reach, text-based USSD (without the need for internet) as well as rich-media Whatsapp, and Facebook Messenger via a ChatBot.

For individual as well as stokvel and bulk purchases, consumers simply purchase Royco and upload an image of their till slip to our bots for verification (a South African first), earning them 50 cents for any Royco product bought.

Once on-board, members are delivered strategic messaging to drive further purchase. Whilst, progressive profiling allows us to gain additional information about our shoppers for the brand.

Activations, TV partnerships, print, out-of-home and social media all promoted the call to action to join.

Launched on 16 July 2018, by the end of August we had over 82 000 join our programme, with over 23 000 joining in one day!

Royco Rewards was designed, through its gamification, communication, referral mechanic and rewards strategy, to drive Royco consumer membership to learn about the brand, share and prompt trial and purchase, increasing the Customer Lifetime Value.

See for yourself… https://youtu.be/YWElzRm9QNI

With Award Winning Results…

Royco Rewards has not only generated great results for the brand but has received a number of nods from the Marketing industry and these accolades from the industry peers are a reminder to constantly work to achieve greatness and deliver innovation through collaboration of client and partner agencies.

In the recently held Direct Marketing Association of South Africa (DMASA) Assegai Awards, which recognises breakthrough strategies and outstanding work in Direct Marketing media, Royco won awards in all the following categories entered due to these key success factors:

GOLD: Mobile Marketing – Interactive (Display, Games, Banner ad, Mobi Sites):

Mobile is the ultimate connector to the target audience: The Mobile Call to Action was promoted across all media, and they could choose their preferred mobile platforms to engage with at any point in time: USSD, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. It’s only through mobile marketing that we could implement the following which we believe to be firsts:

• First single brand FMCG Rewards Programme in South Africa
• First Rewards Programme implemented via a WhatsApp Chat Bot as well as USSD
•  First Rewards Programme for a brand that utilises an automated Till-slip Reader to validate and count purchases

GOLD: Mobile SMS & MMS

Mobile messaging strategy was definitely a key to drive success of the campaign:

• Our SMS with a link to auto-open WhatsApp was convenient and increased participation
• Our customised SMS notifications were timed to drive each to their next step in the gamification journey
• Our personalised, sharable messages drove referral message to go viral and generate the results we have so far

SILVER: Use of new technology

Our Multi-platform Rewards Programme leveraged new technical solutions to bring the first single brand FMCG Rewards Programme to South Africa:

• Joining and engagement happens on WhatsApp Chat Bot, Facebook Messenger as well as USSD, interchangeably.
• The Chatbot platforms were critical in receiving the till slip image as proof of purchase. These images were fed to our automated Till-slip Reader that learnt how to validate and count purchases and allocate rewards accordingly – this overcame a major obstacle for a Rewards Programme that rewards consumers for purchasing a single branded product at various retailers nationwide.

LEADER Award: Integrated direct marketing campaign across 3 channels

LEADER Award: CRM Program

LEADER Award: Loyalty Program

Let’s Share…

Our secret sauce in Royco’s award winning local recipe, was the smart use of the mobile phone, enabling technology to solve our South African challenges, as well the experience of all the cooks in the kitchen (Mobitainment, ARC South Africa, Asakhane), always inspired by client, MARS Africa.