IDM Business Performance Awards 2009:
The Winners

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Diamond winners

The top tier of awards, the BPA Diamonds, is renowned for the rigour of the judging. The judges demand the whole story from entrants, who must demonstrate how their marketing programme has made a long-term, strategic contribution to the business.

Pressure on all retailers is intense – pressure on book retailers especially so, with so many other stores stocking books. To protect its customer base, Waterstone’s needed to understand and engage with its buyers more effectively, building loyalty with those who prefer buying from a “real” bookshop.

Addressing this challenge needed to maximise financial returns at minimum risk. A pilot test of the loyalty scheme was carried out regionally in 22 stores to gauge the viability of a national programme. Once this had been proven, the central database was built integrating POS data with other feeds, including online activity, to provide an holistic view.

The scheme asks customers to sign up for the Waterstone’s Card either instore or via the website. Once critical mass had been established in the database, segmentation was carried out using recency, frequency and value. Customers are tracked over time and by value each quarter. This clustering was used to drive an automated contact programme, including a three-step welcome for new Cardholders to encourage them to spend and to collect further data. Business rules have been put in place to maximise card activation, volume and value of spend.

The loyalty card also allows for ad-hoc marketing campaigns driven from analysis of customer data. Email marketing is used to support seasonal activity and to test special offers. Examples of this have included a double points offer at Easter and bonus points for purchasing at Mother’s Day.

Automated reports track the impact of the loyalty scheme over time and provide snapshots of segments and changes, such as movement between lapsed and infrequent or infrequent and active clusters. This also allows campaign performance to be measured and the current points liability for the retailer to be tracked. For the first time, Waterstone’s can see total customer activity across both online and offline channels for cardholders.

Key performance indicators have been put in place around the number of Cardholders, basket value, percent transacted and number of transactions per year, average transaction value and sales, incremental net sales and email address capture. One campaign delivered a 26 per cent uplift in sales against control, while another uplifted recruitment by 85 per cent.

The proportion of active buyers has increased, with fewer infrequent and lapsed customers. This is directly attributable to the email marketing programme. Waterstone’s now has 2.8 million registered Cardholders, well ahead of its target. The scheme is delivering an incremental uplift in net profit even during difficult trading. The judges felt that this achievement in a tough market was worth commemorating with the highest award.

Inward tourism from the UK is vital to the Scottish economy and VisitScotland is tasked with growing it by 50 per cent over ten years. A change to relationship marketing was made to leverage constrained budget effectively and to maximise use of its three million record database.

Since 2002, contacts had been asked a loyalty question and segmented into Regulars, Occasionals and Rejecters. There is an important difference in value between segments, with Regulars worth £900 on average, compared to £320 for Occasionals. Moving visitors up the ladder in terms of frequency of visit would therefore have a significant payback.

The “Keep Discovering” programme sent existing high-value Regular visitors a personalised, high impact mailing with “off the beaten track” information. This also came with a filofax-style holder to store content for future use. Occasionals received a quarterly personalised mailer with mainstream suggestions, intended to increase their frequency of visit and value. They could request the folder as a mechanism for encouraging interaction and also to manage costs.

By the end of 2008, there had been a 19.75 per cent increase in consumers classifying themselves as Regulars. The programme is calculated to have achieved incremental spend of £18million, a ROI of 68:1, showing that the loyalty ladder approach works. The judges applauded the clever segmentation and its use to drive personalisation through the intelligent use of data.

Swinton Taxi Division is a specialist insurer which has been facing increased competition, lower premiums and a plateau in sales. The company was looking to increase the number of quotes and gain an edge in a commodity market. Taxi drivers are time-poor and need to be engaged by a product from a highly competitive market with some large players.

Word of mouth was recognised as an important dimension in winning over interest at the cab ranks. Existing Swinton customers and any customers that took out a quote would receive a Swinton Mystery Tipper sticker to place in their cab window. The campaign put about the idea of a mysterious woman who would leave a major tip of £1000, but only if the cab was displaying the sticker. This built a sense of expectation and excitement in the target audience.

The year-long campaign drove a 30 per cent increase in business, with response rates up by 130 per cent on the previous year. Success with this campaign has encouraged the client to continue into the current year. The judges enjoyed the good, old-fashioned opportunism of this highly-imaginative campaign.

Highly commended

Client: Citi International Personal Bank
Agency:OTM London
Campaign: Minimum Relationship Balance

Client: Dennis Publishing
Agency: Adestra Ltd
Campaign: Launch of new digital magazine, iGIZMO

Client: Everest
Agency: Data Lateral, Drayton Bird, Equimedia, Maher Bird Associates, Mindshare and The Leaflet Company
Campaign: n/a

The categories

A further eleven awards were given in 2009, each recognising excellence in a specific discipline under the sub-categories of Direct, Data and Digital marketing.

Direct categories

Committed giving is central to World Vision’s relief programmes, with long-term sponsorship of a child (often for more than ten years) its core income source. Sponsor numbers had been in decline, however, with research revealing a sense of fatigue among the key female audience aged 25 to 45.

A new creative proposition moved away from traditional charity imagery to the concept of the “accident of birth” – a child’s destiny determined by where they are born. A media plan optimised for the valuable audience heartland, including peaktime ads in London, DRTV, colour press, online display and search, was developed to gain standout and maximum response.

This departure achieved ROI of 5.3:1 with new sponsors 50 per cent above target, giving a total LTV of £1.7million. DRTV response rates were nearly eight times those for the control group, while branded search sponsorships increased by 54 per cent. The judges noted that the campaign had done something different and brave, especially in the current market. They praised the very powerful creative and elegant execution.

Direct Acquisition – runner up
Client: Association for International Cancer Research
Agency: DMS
Campaign: Pants' Campaign

The Direct Acquisition Category was sponsored by:

This was the most successful mailing ever for Thomson, with incremental sales of over £1m in a single month. As a re Inward tourism from the UK is vital to the Scottish economy and VisitScotland is tasked with growing it by 50 per cent over ten years. A change to relationship marketing was made to leverage constrained budget effectively and to maximise use of the three million record database.

Since 2002, contacts had been asked a loyalty question and segmented into Regulars, Occasionals and Rejecters. The “Keep Discovering” programme sent existing high-value visitors a personalised, high impact mailing with “off the beaten track” information. Occasionals received a quarterly personalised mailer with mainstream suggestions, intended to increase their frequency of visit and value.

By the end of 2008, there had been a 19.75 per cent increase in consumers classifying themselves as Regulars. The programme is calculated to have achieved incremental spend of £18 million, a ROI of 68:1, showing that the loyalty ladder approach works. The judges appreciated the application of this insight and the way good incentives and personalised offers had been delivered in compelling creative.

Direct Retention – runner up
Client: BAA Airports
Agency: Delaney Lund Knox Warren
Campaign: BAA WorldPoints

The Direct Retention category was sponsored by:

Replacing an old gas boiler is a high-ticket, low-interest purchase. Financial incentives had historically been offered, but the economic downturn was putting pressure on the sales pipeline. The campaign targeted home owners with a boiler over ten years old and who had HomeCare service and maintenance contracts with British Gas.

The creative execution looked for an engaging way to demonstrate the potential 40 per cent wasted energy that an old boiler may generate. It did this by sending a real door wedge to high value prospects and an “open window” mailer to the mass prospect base to dramatise energy loss.

The campaign delivered 118 per cent of targeted leads and 162 per cent of targeted sales, giving British Gas incremental sales revenue as a result of higher conversion to sale. The judges felt the campaign was very much “of the moment” with strong creative thinking and clever execution of a clearly-presented proposition.

Direct Creative – runner up
Client: Sky
Agency: Digital and Direct
Campaign: Sky+HD WOW Pack

The Direct Creative category was sponsored by:

Data categories

Competition in the baby market is intense for manufacturers and retailers. Huggies wanted to ensure it acquired new mums as customers, then retain them through the baby’s development. Growing the baby category and driving customers to Sainsbury’s Baby Aisle were also important.

Using data from Sainsbury’s and Nectar, product purchases were identified which acted as key life event indicators that could trigger contact. A communications programme was developed that applied sophisticated business rules and trade-offs (or “trimming”) to determine which prospects received which personalised messages. The impact on purchasing was tracked to allow for streamlining of contact frequency.

As a result, the manufacturer has achieved sales uplift of over £1 million and the retailer over £1.7 million. Customer insight has driven the programme across its three years of operation and now includes market research alongside transactional data. The judges praised the excellent use of customer data to up-sell and create long-term relationships in a well considered, well-run campaign.

Data Customer Insight – runner up
Client: Thomas Cook Financial Services
Agency: JaywingDMG/InboxDMG
Campaign: My Holiday Countdown

The Data Customer Insight category was sponsored by:

Field sales have been an important volume source of new customers, but often yield those with low value and high propensity to churn and default. To address this, EDF Energy used the transactional data it holds enhanced with CACI’s Ocean universe. Based on this data source, the whole UK has been mapped into Gold, Silver and Bronze value segmentations.

The value metric was built on consumption, churn and bad debt, drawing on in-house transactional information combined with lifestyle variables. The objective was to create a classification which would be actionable by field sales teams, keeping them loyal, while increasing sales to the highest value households.

As well as rolling out the segmentation across field sales, all outbound marketing communications were targeted to just Gold and Silver households. The programme has increased sales to the highest value customers threefold and delivered a substantial increase in annualised customer lifetime value. Agent retention also improved by 25 per cent. The judges praised the complete about-turn from volume to value which produced good results.

Data Targeting – runner up
Client: Royal Mail & Furniture Village
Agency:DQM Group
Campaign: Reaching Home Movers

The Data Targeting category was sponsored by:

Data governance is increasingly important to organisations as a way of ensuring they protect and maximise the value of their data assets. DataMeasures™ is a benchmarking and information service designed to help data professionals achieve best practice in all areas of governance.

Research among major data users, including large blue-chip clients, identified the lack of benchmarking information as their single biggest need. To address this, DQM developed a survey questionnaire and built a web site to create a body of benchmarking responses and develop into a reference touchpoint for the data industry.

The project beat its target for completed surveys by 25 per cent before launch. The site is now live and working as a community for data professionals who actively use the benchmarking tool and access deeper information across the site. Improved data governance is seen as the most important element in the future health of the DM, CRM and data industries, making this service fundamental to all data users.

Best New Data Service/Product – runner up
Client: Shop Direct Group
Agency: Entire Direct Marketing
Campaign: SelectE Catalyst: Littlewoods Direct Christmas campaign

The Best New Data Service/Product category was sponsored by:

Digital categories

To mobilise support for climate change legislation, Friends of the Earth needed to engage “Mid-Greens” – individuals who feel personal responsibility for reducing their impact on the planet, but who are not environmental activists. The virtual march website allowed people to upload their own protest videos and email their local MP asking for strong climate change laws.

The Big Ask gained support from177, 048 people, with 50,000 video uploads. The world’s first long-term legally-binding framework for tackling climate change was passed in November 2008, one year ahead of schedule.

Digital Innovations – runner up
Client: Talk Talk
Agency: CHI & Partners
Campaign: The Forever Story

The Digital Innovations category was sponsored by:

Free restaurant booking service Toptable.com had been sending a one-size-fits-all email to its users, but nearly half had only made a single booking through the site. To increase this and reduce defectors, the company embarked on a new data-driven email programme. An incentivised email was sent to dormant users. The main email programme was refreshed with targeted offers, news and reviews section. The eCRM programme increased bookings by 76 per cent in year one, producing an ROI of 970 per cent. Defection was reduced with a 1600 per cent increase in conversion.

Best Use of Email – joint runner up
Client: Dennis Publishing
Agency: Adestra Ltd
Campaign: Launch of new digital magazine -iGIZMO

Best Use of Email – joint runner up
Client: Littlewoods Direct
Agency: Entire Direct Marketing
Campaign: We know what you want this Christmas

The Best Use of Email category was sponsored by:

Radisson Edwardian recognised that it was receiving a poor ROI from its paid search. A new approach concentrated on highly-targeted paid search highlighting the USPs of each hotel, including location and seasonal activities. Facilities that drive revenue, such as conference halls and spas, were also included. ROI rose to 44:1 and the paid-search campaign is being further developed this year to increase the level of targeting, for example by focusing on food and drink offerings at hotels. The chain is now experiencing higher occupancy rates and the client says the campaign has galvanised the business.

Best Use of Search Engine Marketing – runner up
Client: Virgin Media
Agency: Manning Gottlieb OMD
Campaign: Getting Google Naked

The Best Use of Search Engine Marketing category was sponsored by:

In the critical run-up to Christmas, urban clothing retailer Republic wanted to engage key audiences – students, female “Fashion Fillies” and “Brand Junkies. CPA deals were struck with publishers and creative techniques used to achieve standout. Draw Your Head encouraged users to draw in the banner. Changing Room used a Flash technique to display more products and logos than is usually possible – a first on the MSN network. ROI across the campaigns was 5.35:1, with sales above target by 37 per cent and CPA below target by 15 per cent.

Best Use of Online Display Advertising – runner up
Client: Virgin Media
Agency: Manning Gottlieb OMD
Campaign: Maximising Online Subscriptions

The Best Use of Online Display Advertising catogory was sponsored by:

The Boston Celtics reached the NBA Finals in 2008 for the first time in 20 years, giving Reebok just eight days to create an engaging campaign, based around star player Rajon Rondo. Fans downloaded the “You Got Rondo’d” ringtone and, when he made a great play, received calls making mobiles ring out in unison across the globe.

A special WAP site was created, receiving over half a million unique hits, with 200,000 ringtone, video and wallpaper downloads and thousands of opt-ins for the callbacks. Sales of Celtics and basketball merchandise exceeded targets.

Best Use of Mobile Marketing – runner up
No runner up prize awarded

The Best Use of Mobile Marketing category was sponsored by:

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