Britvic must adhere to the old adage of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’
Such has been the success of the promotions developed exclusively for the vending channel by Britvic and marketing agency Just Peel, that this year’s version – Vend2Win – worked a lot like last years’…
If Vend2Win was a suit, it would be ‘made to measure’ rather than ‘off the peg’. It’s ‘invitation only’. ‘This year, fourteen operators took part’, Britvic Account Manager Bryan Raphael explained. ‘Historically, we operated the machines ourselves, so we know which operators have the glass-fronted machines that Vend2Win requires. That rules out some potential participants and we trim the list even further by looking at regions. We try to invite half from my customer estate and half from my colleague James Cripps’. We know the products they stock, so we make our choices based on those criteria and then approach the individual operators.’
Vend2Win is a joint effort between Britvic and its customers
The promotion, notable for its posters, self-cling vinyls and bottle-neck collars, ran between 4 September and 29 October. Vend2Win is a joint effort between Britvic and its customers. The supplier provides the POS and the technology, the operator puts the collars on the products and dresses the machines. The individual merchandisers are incentivised to take part, too. They’re tasked to activate and photograph a minimum of three machines in each week of the promotional period. That box ticked, the merchandiser who prepares the machine that eventually delivers the winner of the star prize, earns £50 of High Street vouchers.
This year’s winner was Clair Pinder, a regular at Spenborough Pool and Fitness Complex, located in the small West Yorkshire town of Liversedge. First, she scanned the QR code on the bottleneck collar on her bottle of Drench. The QR code led her to the Vend2Win web site and an image of a vending machine appeared. All she had to do then was click the ‘vend’ button. Straight away, a drink appeared, fruit machine style. She repeated the process three times, until all the slots were filled. She saw to her delight that all four of the slots matched and hey presto, she’d scooped first prize – £1,000 worth of High Street vouchers – just in time for Christmas.
‘It’s the third year we’ve created a promotion exclusively for vending and each time it’s been a tremendous success’, Bryan said. ‘We don’t have the final scores yet for this year, but previously we’ve seen sales increase by between 25 and 30%. We expect we’ve had a similar impact this year. The aim going forward is to roll Vend2Win out to more of our products and have more operators taking part.’
We’ve seen a significant uplift in sales of Britvic products as a result of the promotion
‘It really is a win-win’ , said Mark Booth of Wilkes Group, the vending operator that serves the complex. ‘We have 34 operators out on the road and every one of them took part in Vend2Win. We’ve seen a significant uplift in sales of Britvic products as a result of the promotion. The fact that one of our customers has provided the winner of the star prize is a real bonus. This is the first time we’ve been part of this particular promotion and we’ll be back for more next year, that’s for sure.’
