No strings attached at BP's Wild Bean Café

Making the most of mobile is all about putting it at the center of marketing campaigns from the planning stage onwards. Enpocket and BP have done just that in a groundbreaking drive to store campaign.

BP doesn’t only sell fuel; it’s also becoming a stop-off point for motorists that want to recharge their batteries.  Its Wild Bean Cafés, situated within service stations, are increasingly popular with coffee lovers.

BP sought to use mobile to drive further trial of its products.  It came up with a cross channel competition  that drove customers in store and gave them the chance to win exclusive prizes.

Every entrant to the competitions run online, on drive-time radio and at service stations across the UK was, in-return, sent a mobile coupon, by text message, for a free coffee at the Wild Bean Café.

Each coupon contains a unique ID that is keyed in on the credit card (chip-and-pin) terminal and authenticated.  The real-time nature of the system means that BP can track activity, down to which customers redeemed the coupon and at what time.

Importantly there has been no new hardware investment necessary in store.  The i-movo technology used rides on the existing credit card infrastructure, which has enabled BP to roll out the system across 1,000 sites.  BP can quickly launch new special offers on any product, to a targeted customer segment, and then immediately track the success in real-time.

The program follows on from innovative mobile campaigns Enpocket has run for Vodafone Live Music, using mobile barcodes, and McDonalds, who used mobile coupons to drive late store traffic.  Furthermore the Financial Times ran a successful mobile couponing campaign with Enpocket and i-movo at the end of 2006.

Expect to see more large scale mobile campaigns that bridge the gap between the digital and physical worlds in 2007!