Rugby doubles as smart marketing ploy

An online rugby sweepstakes game is at the heart of a highly successful marketing campaign for the New Zealand Rugby Union.

Created by IT marketing specialists Proximity iD, Telecom Virtual Rugby - at the link below - is an example of an online community website that doubles as a marketing tool.

The use of online communities for business marketing is increasing, says Proximity iD managing director Geoff Cooper.

"One of the things companies are wanting is to develop deeper and longer conversations with their customers over time. Having a community like virtual rugby, where customers are having a bit of fun, is a really good environment to do that."

Cooper describes Proximity iD simply as a marketing technology company.

"We do things like email marketing and campaign delivery, marketing database and software development, digital and web development, and data mining and marketing analytics."

Rugby and internet marketing technology are a curious mix, although one that has paid off for Proximity iD. Originally called Virtual Super 12 and Virtual NPC, about 137,000 players are registered for this season's Telecom-sponsored Virtual Rugby.

It's basically a sweepstake, where registered users guess which teams will win and by what margin. Prizes such as cars are won by the best performers at the end of the season. Users can look at their mates' picks after each game, and send messages to each other.

"It generates quite a lot of banter," Cooper says.

A celebrity "rugby heads" panel gives the picks from personalities such as TV3's John Campbell, sports commentator Tony Veitch and former All Black Grant Fox.

"From the rugby union point of view, what's really good for them is it extends people's awareness and interest in the actual rugby games," Cooper says.

"What virtual rugby has done is to get people to start following lower division teams like Buller. It's a neat way to extend interest in the wider game."

With options for the site to send updates via email, traditional mailouts and SMS text messaging (for Telecom mobile users), the rugby union has a multi-channel marketing approach where the user specifies which method of communication is preferred, resulting in more "sticky" customers.

Proximity iD is a separate business unit working in partnership with prominent marketing agency AIM Proximity and it has supported AIM's Auckland and Wellington branches with marketing technology services since 1998, although the technology unit existed in various forms before that.

Proximity iD also manages online marketing campaigns for large clients such as Air New Zealand, Bank of New Zealand, NZ Post, Telecom Directories and Progressive Enterprises.

The company handles loyalty-driven campaigns for Air New Zealand (air points and email marketing). For Progressive Enterprises (Woolworths, Foodtown), the focus is on the customer loyalty card Onecard.

"We look at people's shopping patterns, what they're buying," Cooper says.

"That's used to target communications when Onecard sends out vouchers to people. The decision on what sort of vouchers to send out partly comes from that."

Proximity iD has won several awards locally and internationally, including a silver at last year's US National Centre for Database Marketing Awards for Database Excellence.

The company also took the Supreme Nexus award at the 2006 NZ Direct Marketing Awards on Friday, the fifth time in seven years it has won that title.

Cooper says online communities will become more prevalent over the next couple of years.

PROXIMITY ID

* Who: Managing director Geoff Cooper.

* What: Online campaigns and marketing analytics.

* Where: Auckland.

* Why: "Companies want to develop deeper and longer conversations with their customers."