FMCG brands have, up until now, been reluctant to shift too much
of their budget online because they have yet to see hard proof that
online provides an uplift in sales in the same way traditional
media such as TV and print.
Sainsbury's consumer reward card Nectar teamed up with Yahoo to
create a targeting product that merged Nectar's retail data with
Yahoo's online user data to show that online advertising leads to
increased sales at the shopping tills.
The solution was Consumer Connect, an innovative
"banner-to-barcode" solution that married the two databases: the
Yahoo UK and Ireland database of 23 million registered users and
their online behaviour with Sainsbury's Nectar Card database of 12
million registered users and their purchasing behaviour.
A target audience is selected from the merged panel based on
their offline purchasing behaviour as recorded by their Nectar
card. Yahoo then segments their online behaviours, looking at their
favourite channels. The model is extrapolated over the rest of the
Yahoo user database to identify similar consumers with similar web
habits and those users are targeted with tailored advertising
messages. The uplift was then measured by comparing the offline
purchase behaviour of exposed consumers to a control group who did
not see online advertising.
Consumer Connect was used in beta testing by a health and beauty
brand in a mature category t that wanted to react to a competitor's
increased marketing activities. It wanted to protect their own
brand loyalists and target non-loyal users. As a result of this
campaign, sales for the advertiser brand rose 19% in the aftermath
of the campaign, even though they were being outspent by their
competitor.
A refrigerated food brand trying to grow against a very dominant
competitor asked the Consumer Connect team in the States to help
them build brand awareness and promote trials of their product
amongst heavy category buyers and competitive loyalists. The
advertising message focused on awareness and the features of their
product. Against a control group of those not exposed to the
Consumer Connect driven advertising, sales rose 11% with the main
competitor losing five share points against their prior period.
After highly successful beta testing, Consumer Connect launched
in the UK in February 2010. Of the 400 campaigns to date, there was
an average short term sales uplift of 31%.