Kachingo! chases its winning customers

By IRENE CHAPPLE

An in-your-face television advertising campaign for customer loyalty scheme Kachingo! has not drilled home the message to some of its big winners.

Only two of the four customers who have won $250,000 have collected the cash, and fewer than 30 per cent have claimed the $1000 and $10,000 prizes.

The campaign, by Auckland agency GeneratorBates has 138 versions and racked up the fourth biggest bill for October television advertising. The scheme started last October and has an advertising budget of $3.5 million for its first six months.

The total marketing budget for the period is $6 million.

Kachingo! creator, Paul Dennis of Global Online Promotions, said the $250,000 winner for January had only just been announced, and winners had six months to collect prizes.

He said claim rates for the smaller prizes - $100, $20 and $5 - were hovering around 50 per cent, and that there had been 7000 Kachingo! winners. But he agreed there was a need to increase the claim rate for larger prizes.

Mr Dennis said such programmes needed time to be taken up by consumers, and that Flybys took a few months to fully engage the market.

Kachingo! prizes that remained unclaimed would be put back into the prize pool.

"We want to give away the money," Mr Dennis said.

"We don't just do a draw and hope people don't claim.

"If a rewards programme is to be successful, people need to be rewarded so they will feel good about where they are shopping and go back again."

The advertising campaign had been a success because it had captured attention, he said.

However Global Online was looking at ways to push winners into collecting their cash.

The advertisements' distinctive characters will be kept, but themes may change.

"We want to move the emphasis on to how to check your tickets, and the numbers of cash winners we have. The message will change a little."

Spending on advertising spend could also be reduced to enable the prize pool to be increased, he said.

Kachingo! is seen as a successful marketing tool for participating retailers, and has Woolworths, Big Fresh, Price Chopper, KFC and Super Liquor as tenants in the Kachingo! village.

The retailers can use the technology for data-marketing and consumer information.

Global Online has promised to spend $7 million annually on the scheme.

The $10 million software was developed by Christchurch businessman Chris Berryman and sells tickets to participating stores for daily, weekly and monthly draws.

The four-year old company, recently valued at $70 million, has opened offices in San Francisco and Sydney, and hopes to expand into Asia and Britain.