Tesco Clubcard TV - the next level in data mining

Tesco Clubcard TV has arrived! After a successful month of beta testing to Tesco’s employees, it is now available to all 16 million Tesco Clubcard members.

Clubcard TV, powered by Blink box, is an online service streaming a variety of movies & TV shows, free to all Clubcard members. However, it is unlike any online streaming service out there. Clubcard TV will use data mined from the Tesco Clubcard loyalty programme to enable participating brands to target advertisements to individual members based on their shopping habits.

Like the current loyalty programme, data is mined to better understand the spending habits of its members to offer them relevant, tailored vouchers & coupons. In this case, relevant, tailored advertisements will be aired to members based on their shopping behaviour, demographic & location data.

The ad-funded model will air advertisements before, during and after playbacks requiring only a member’s loyalty membership number for registration.

The video –on –demand industry has grown quickly over the years with many companies such as Netflix & Lovefilm reaping the benefits of this online demand, however none have managed to offer, not only a free service with no subscription or contract required, but one that has tailored, “purposeful” advertisements that are more relevant to the end user (member) than mass advertisements.

Taking it one step further, Tesco’s Scott Deutrom, MD Clubcard TV says “Better still, we can target adverts based on what our customers bought yesterday, we can show that we are listening to our customers in ‘real’ time.”

Post campaign analytics will be made available to advertisers who would like to track their brands actual sales as a result of targeted advertisements.

Just when we thought Tesco’s innovation cap may have run dry, it has certainly proved it still has what it takes to compete and be ahead of the loyalty game. Good on you Tesco!

Ros Siddle, Marketing & Loyalty Research Manager, Truth

O2 giving us reasons to sit up and listen, watch and learn

I have never really taken any notice of the O2 brand in the UK, even though I am English. I do of course notice it when I support the English rugby side! Graham Webster, Director of Customer Experience at Telefonica Europe presented at the International Customer Experience World conference (Johannesburg, March 2013) and gave us some riveting insights to their O2 customer experience strategy.

O2 use web chat to engage with clients at a rate of 250,000 web chat calls per month. From this, they see the highest customer satisfaction from the web chat channel and the lowest cost per channel. Why are so many more organisations not using this phenomenal tool?

O2 branded the potential white elephant: the London dome in the East end. Was this done purely for sponsorship purposes? An element maybe? It gives great brand exposure. I hear my friends referring to concert X at the "O2" and a tennis spectacular at the "O2". Awesome!  But actually, it was done so that their O2 customers always get a better customer experience. Early release tickets, better offer tickets, zoned off areas, especially for the cellphone clients of O2.

Much to my horror did I realise that O2 also sponsor the Irish rugby team (it's the English thing in me!). O2 have done the most amazing customer engagement competitions for their Irish rugby fans. Fans were able to pre-record their pre match rah-rah speech to the players, ad it was played on the stadium screens on match day.  Fans were able to submit their name to be incorporated into players numbers on the back of their shirts, and find these online – I.e. Which player is carrying my name? Such incredible customer engagement strategies to build longer term client retention.

So what? The bottom line is that O2 enjoyed a 28% reduction in client churn which was directly attributable to the combination of these client engagement/sponsorship activities. Simply a remarkable measurable by which clients engaged in either web chat, O2 dome experiences, rugby competitions, etc.

Having said all of this, Graham did refer to the fact that none of this makes any sense at all if the network falls over or there are basic service offering mishaps. As we have mentioned before, client engagement strategies, marketing and loyalty initiatives must not be 'lipstick on a pig'!

O2, we salute you. Any company would enjoy a 28% reduction in churn. Thank you for sharing your insights.

                                                       Amanda Cromhout, Founder & CEO, Truth