As advertising budgets are continually being squeezed by the economic climate, and with fast paced changes in how media is consumed, advertisers are finding more innovative and targeted ways in which to reach their consumers. With this in mind, Nectar Adpoints, an innovative service that rewards Nectar collectors for watching and interacting with TV advertising, was born in October 2012 and has since been shortlisted for the Performance Marketing Awards.

Overview

Collectors earn 250 Nectar points for signing up to Nectar Adpoints with the potential to earn up to 250 additional points per week simply for watching advertisers’ videos online. Following completion of the advert, collectors may earn more points by answering two questions from the advertiser which typically focus on subjects such as brand usage, purchase intent and brand favourability. Collectors are also invited to visit an advertiser’s site and are rewarded with additional points for doing so. The service can be targeted so collectors can be served adverts based on their preferences, focusing viewers’ attention, encouraging interaction, increasing enjoyment and therefore the opportunity to maximise points earned.  Invited collectors are chosen based on a propensity model developed by Nectar which looks at their behaviour and determines whether they have a high probability of adopting the Nectar Adpoints proposition.  

Strategy for launch and growth

Nectar Adpoints launched as an invitation-only proposition to create excitement and drive interest. This gave the business a highly targeted group of collectors to test and learn the experience with before opening the scheme up to the wider Nectar base in January 2013.

The Nectar Adpoints customer journey was mapped from launch as follows:

  • An email was sent containing a unique reference code that the collector had to input on the Nectar Adpoints website. This was a way to ensure Nectar Adpoints remained “invite only” in the initial stages
  • Collectors complete a short registration questionnaire. The data collected from this is used to drive targeted advertising via the website and to create insights for advertisers following the completion of their campaigns
  • The collector then chooses an ad to watch from a carousel of 50+ ads available
  • Once watching the ad, a prompt appears to check the collector is still watching – this must be clicked in order to continue
  • Once the ad completes, the collector is required to rate the ad to collect their Nectar points
  • After viewing and rating the ad, collectors can answer questions and visit the advertiser’s site, providing additional insight back to the advertiser
  • Various click through destinations are offered including the company page, brand page, advertiser page or facebook page
  • The advertiser receives insight on how their ads have performed

To maintain interest amongst consumers, the adverts being showcased are of vital importance. With this in mind, the offer being presented to the advertiser has to be compelling.

The Nectar Adpoints offering presented to advertisers includes:

  1. Access to a substantial targeted audience Nectar cardholders
  2. Highly engaged customers – adverts have to be watched fully by customers to obtain their points
  3. Customer insight on their products / advertisements through post-viewing survey questions and likeability ratings
  4. Removal of wastage – advertisers pay on a cost per engagement model
  5. Deeper engagement with the customer – choose collectors through careful segmentation and show them content based on their preferences
  6. Enable advertisers to track back to in-store to gauge the efficiency of their advertising by analysing such metrics as incremental spend, gains & losses, share of wallet, frequency of purchase and weight of purchase

Results

The success of Adpoints can be measured through the fact that:

  • Collectors spend up to 6 minutes per visit watching adverts
  • Collectors make, on average, 13 visits per month
  • Collectors are spending, on average, 80 minutes on site, per month
  • Collectors are watching, on average, 60 adverts per month
  • There have been over 3 million video views
  • An average of 200 adverts have been viewed per member
  • 85% of all questions asked by the advertisers have been completed
  • Click through rates to advertisers’ sites post viewing are in excess of 65% on average

These figures have all increased month-on-month since the service began in October 2012 demonstrating how engaging this innovative platform is.