Smart Marketing: Scratch-and-win Takes Off!

TORONTO, Canada - 04/05/04 - Air Canada's recent "Luck o' the Irish" campaign celebrated St. Patrick's day and confirmed that N5R programs are capable of delivering a whole lot more than a pot of gold!

Our most wildly successful program ever, the Luck o' the Irish campaign promoted Air Canada's webSaver program (seen below) with a contest incentive and integral viral component.

To promote the webSaver newsletter and encourage current subscribers to refer friends, Air Canada gave away a trip for 2 to Ireland. To lift viral referrals to new heights, entrants received a new scratch-and-win card in their email for each unique email address they referred to the program (seen to the right).

Only 107 prizes were available to be won on scratch cards - meaning most entrants would have received a "Try again" message. And try again they did!

In a referral-record-breaking race to win instant Air Canada prizes ranging from Aeroplan miles to Maple Leaf Lounge passes, entrants referred over 200,000 new email address to the webSaver database.

Over two short weeks, the webSaver list grew by 38%. 78% of contest entrants were new to webSaver and had heard about the program through a referral email from a friend who had also entered. Not surprising considering 51% of entrants referred at least one other person to the program in hopes of winning an instant scratch-and-win prize.

Why did this Air Canada program "take off" so quickly? Our experience shows that the N5R scratch-and-win program is a definite winner. The consumer finds it exciting and fun. Just the action of "scratching" seems to make a referral more worthwhile. Many entrants will refer several people just for the chance to scratch, scratch, scratch their way to winning!