Marketing: Ringing Endorsement

Juice It Up calls on prospective customers by offering coupons on their cell phones.

By Margaret Littman, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 1/1/2007

For consumers of a certain age—those who wrote college term papers on typewriters and shared a telephone (land line) with several roommates—the idea of receiving advertising messages via cell phone is downright intrusive, not to mention a little technologically intimidating. But not so of the younger set, who Juice It Up is targeting with its new cell phone coupon program. The Irvine, Calif.-based company hopes the new marketing approach will help cultivate the smoothie chain’s hip, fun image.

When Dené Sanders, a partner at Santa Ana, Calif.-based Post-Agency Advertising LLC, began working with Juice It Up, the chain had an image problem. Not a Tom Cruise/O.J. Simpson/Michael Richards-type image problem. Perhaps it would be better classified as a lack-of-image problem.

"When we started, there was no branded look and feel to the stores. People would leave not knowing where they had been," Sanders says. "They knew they had been in a smoothie shop, and they knew that it wasn’t Jamba [Juice]. But that was about it."

In the 18 months since Post-Agency began working with Juice It Up, things have changed. After research determined that the 124-unit chain’s best demographic was 18- to 24-year-old women, particularly college students, the agency created a feel that Sanders describes as "hip and fun," rather than "Zen and healthy," which is the vibe for many smoothie concepts. It capped the messaging with a cheeky tagline: "Live Life Juiced," which appeared on billboards, bus wraps, direct mail and as part of local event marketing. A promotion timed with the opening of the concept’s 100th store in summer 2006 increased the chain’s customer e-mail database from 2,000 names to 8,000.

Not Your Mother’s Coupon Clipping

With that foundation, Post-Agency started brainstorming ways to let the target audience know about the hip 12-year-old chain. From September 2006 to February 2007, Juice It Up is testing a cell phone coupon program aimed at its young customers, who text message as often as they talk and are never without their cells.

"This pay-per-click model was a way for us to test a cutting-edge technology that is important to this audience," says Stephanie Sproull, Juice It Up’s director of marketing.

Instead of text messages that pop on to a phone at inopportune times, as some mobile promotions do, the program requires users to download the coupon, with the retailer’s logo, after subscribing to the free service from San Diego-based Eureka Mobile. Users search for appropriate coupons for restaurants or beauty salons, for example, based on the neighborhood where they’d like to find the service at that particular time. Eureka Mobile currently provides coupons via cell phone to Cingular wireless users in California, and is looking to expand nationally in 2007.

Just five stores are company-owned, so getting franchisee buy-in on the promotion was essential, Sproull says.

"The cashier enters [a code from the customer’s cell phone coupon] into the register like any other coupon," says Sproull. "It was very important for us that it was simple to execute at the store level. It is amazing how simple it is."

Can You Find Me Now?

In addition to the simplicity, customers are getting targeted information. Instead of a list of all the chain’s stores in a city, as they might find on a bus side, they are getting a message about just the closest location.

"The retailer is getting the person at the time they are making their buying decision," explains Dan Bailey, Eureka Mobile’s co-founder.

The Juice It Up cell phone couponing effort—a $1 off promotion—was still under way at press time, so final redemption rates were not yet available. Initial response was in the 10 percent range. Bailey says the average redemption rate so far for Eureka Mobile’s cell phone coupons in general is about 30 percent.

The overall Post-Agency marketing efforts, however, have been measured. Same-store sales last year were up 10 percent over 2005, and in February and July 2006, when Juice It Up’s limited-time offers were active, same-store sales increased 22 percent.

Fees for the retailer for issuing a cell phone coupon are 5 cents when a consumer downloads the coupon and 45 cents when he or she redeems it, making the promotion affordable for Juice It Up, which has an advertising budget of just $450,000.

But even larger chains are taking notice, Bailey says. The technology allows national chains to test cell phone marketing with a particular demographic in a narrow geographic area. Bailey says Eureka Mobile has worked with Einstein Bros. Bagels and Chili’s, both of which are testing the service in certain California ZIP codes. Chains can also limit the number of people who receive a certain offer.

"Our brand proposition is that the product we offer is a reward, a treat. It is something fun and exciting and different. It is not the healthy yoga of our competitors. So it makes sense that we are trying something different with our marketing," Sproull says.

For Bailey the marketing is more basic: "For the 16 to 24 age group, this is what drives them: Things that are cool."