This past February, Central Market partnered with Springbox to ring in the most chocolatey of months with a multi-channel campaign that leveraged in-store QR Codes and a Flash-based homepage takeover for an in-store and online chocolate treasure hunt. The contest awarded chocolate-filled baskets to a handful of people who submitted their emails either through the Flash-based homepage takeover or through an in-store code.

A Lovely Flash Experience

From Jan. 31 – Feb. 16, the homepage portion of the campaign featured various foods and drinks, all trying to woo chocolate with their love notes. The banner encouraged visitors to “Click the Love Notes,” which, in addition to displaying the food’s best attempt to win chocolate’s coveted heart, also displayed featured products and recipes using the two ingredients — for example, Chocolate Chile Pecan Brownies, Chocolate-covered Bacon, and Chocolate Cream Stout Cake. Once users clicked several notes, the “Golden Truffle” popped up with a contest entry form. Submitted emails were entered to win.

Sweet, Sweet Continuity

To align the in-store experience with the online promotion and also reach new customers, for the last week of the campaign we “hid” the same love notes on signs next to the featured products in Central Market’s stores. These notes contained a QR code and a three-digit code, both of which shoppers could use to enter the contest. Unlike the homepage, which only provided one opportunity to enter, every in-store sign presented shoppers with another chance to win. Customers could enter up to seven times: once through the homepage and six times through each of the physical signs.

Mmmmm-metrics

As Springbox’s Senior Developer, Grant Norwood, notes in a recent blog post on the adoption of QR codes, “early adopters” compose the majority of the population using QR codes today. We were very pleased to see how well Central Market’s community responded to the relatively new functionality and to the campaign as a whole. Over the course of the campaign, which had one of Central Market’s highest estimated engagement rates to date, we noted several encouraging metrics:

• Via QR Codes customers received extra chances to win, and they used them! 39.91% of the contest’s total entries were submitted through QR Codes — even though the codes only appeared for a fraction of the contest period.
• We received 92.16% of the new email addresses entered during the contest through QR codes! (A “new” email address is one added to Central Market's correspondence list that was not already listed in their database.)
• 14.17% of the Central Market’s current “eFoodie Newsletter” subscriptions originated from this promotion.