Watson's
Creating promotions to generate higher retail spend
A giveaway promotion delivered an outstanding return on investment for a retail chain.
The challenge
Increase average in-store spend by 14%
Extreme competition in the Taiwanese retail market prompted Watson's, a pharmacy chain, to look for ways to increase average consumer spend per visit. Their objective was to increase average spend per visit by 14% (from US$11 to US$12.60).
Watson's wanted to use a giveaway doll campaign, a promotion technique used successfully by several major brands in Taiwan.
Our greatest challenge was that the Watson's campaign required consumers to spend US$12 at a time when McDonald's and 7-Eleven had recently launched similar campaigns requiring spends of just US$1.50 and US$2.30, respectively.
Our insight
Find emotional relevance for a doll-based promotion
We needed to find an original approach that would give our campaign a broad appeal and differentiate it from other doll-based campaigns,
Our core female target had a common obsession with being lucky in life, and the majority carried small dolls with them as lucky charms. They were likely to visit temples to pray for good fortune. Programs featuring superstitious content such as astrology and fate also ranked highly with this audience.
To win the battle of the dolls, we had to create products that met people's emotional desire to be lucky rather than just offering a cute item with a transient value. If these dolls could cover a broad range of lucky situations, we stood a greater chance of driving repeat business and high-ticket purchases.
Our solution
Create lucky dolls in a multimedia campaign
We created seven dolls, each for a different area of luck, such as love, money and health. Playing on the target's fascination with superstition - these dolls were positioned as lucky symbols with the emotional power to give you an edge in life.
Our Get Lucky in Life campaign used TV, online, magazines and text messaging to actively engage with different segments of the target group. We negotiated deals with individual programming to communicate the qualities of each doll. For example, 'Lucky in Love' dolls were integrated into popular teenage TV shows and the 'Keep Harmful People Away' doll was built in to gossip and political talk shows!
We created online interaction by launching a website offering cash prizes for photographs and stories featuring dolls and their owners, generating further excitement around the campaign.
The results
- Consumer spend per visit up 43%
- Sales up 10%
- 3.5 million dolls distributed in six weeks
- 500,000 website visitors
