The Campaign

We created a character called The True Rewarden – a quirky, self-appointed, 70’s style cop with an unusually passionate desire to see New Zealanders get True Rewards on everything they purchased. (played by Kiwi movie star, Rachel House, aka Paula in ‘Hunt For The Wilderpeople’ – New Zealand’s highest grossing film). Charging around the country, The True Rewarden set out on a ‘life or death mission’ to make sure every Kiwi gets the Rewards they deserve, under the slogan, ‘No Reward Left Behind’.

Creative Execution

Accompanied by her trusty AI chatbot, Kiri, The True Rewarden showed shoppers the ease of redeeming in New Zealand’s stores. Kiwis couldn’t hide. She was on every social channel, billboard, bus, and tracking them down all over the internet. We also launched an acquisition that retargeted any non-member who’d shown interest in the initial campaign. This was a truly integrated integrated campaign, covering all social platforms, TV, outdoor and radio. Every single execution encouraged Kiwis to get engaged and sign up for True Rewards.

Results

Hard to ignore, easy to understand, the campaign was a nationwide hit. It re-engaged the customer base and smashed targets throughout the campaign period (November 2017 - February 2018) 6,097 new True Rewards credit card accounts were opened. Representing almost a 50% uplift from the same period the year before. Enjoyment of the campaign was miles ahead of that of competitor bank's recent loyalty campaigns with a 45% enjoyment rate (average banks was at 40%). The campaign was incredibly popular, receiving over 1million views online – or 1 in 4 New Zealanders.

The True Rewarden direct campaign transformed the fortunes of one of New Zealand’s oldest loyalty programs. There was no new product innovation to account for the massive surge in popularity. There was no new or outstanding incentive to sign up. The results are purely down to the advertising idea. Integrated across all touchpoints, the campaign prompted New Zealanders to sign up, smashing all targets set by ASB.

While the program may have been old and boring, the True Rewards proposition is wonderfully simple; spend with your ASB credit card, earn True Rewards Dollars, each of which is worth NZD$1 - easy to understand. So, if we could articulate the value in an interesting way, most Kiwis would find it relevant. And, while True Rewards didn’t have the drawcard of air miles, the partners included almost all of New Zealand most familiar stores. So, again, True Rewards was highly relevant to almost every New Zealander. We just had to get Kiwis excited about doing it. Our goal was to capture their attention. We planned an integrated campaign to clearly explain the ease and value of True Rewards. The campaign would focus on acquisition, with a strong promise to non-customers as well as employing ASB’s connected customer platform (CCC) to remind existing customers of the value they were missing.