Kellogg’s and Disney create an SMS marketing campaign with customer rewards

Disney, the global entertainment giant, launched its animated movie Moana collaborating closely with the breakfast cereal giant Kellogg’s.

The two companies planned a campaign that awarded a $5 discount to customers that sent an SMS message to the breakfast company including a photo of their receipt.

The film, which was released as Vaiana in Spain for commercial reasons (there is a perfume brand named Moana), came out in the United States on November 23rd. The SMS marketing promotional campaign of both brands started a lot earlier, and included a $5 refund towards a ticket to watch the movie, or to buy food or drink at the cinema.

Participation

To get the discount, customers had to buy three 11oz or larger boxes of the Kellogg’s cereal taking part in the promotion. The time period of purchase was long enough to allow time for customers to buy three boxes or more: from September 1st 2016 to January 31st 2017. The deadline for sending the SMS message with proof of purchase was set to February 3rd, a Friday.

To get the $5 coupon, customers had to send the word CEREAL to the number 811811. In response, the customers were sent a request to send a clear photo of the receipt of purchase of the three cereal boxes with the date clearly visible. Kellogg’s then responded by confirming that they received the image, and sent the customer their $5 discount once their receipt was approved.

SMS is to the present what post is to the past

It’s that easy. Many of us may find it difficult to remember how we managed to get a promotional refund just a few years ago – you had to fill out a form, put your supermarket receipts in an envelope, go to the post office to buy a stamp and put the letter in in the postbox. And wait. Wait until the promotions department of the company in question processed the form, the receipts and the identity of the participant. Compared to how easy it is today, it took up a lot of time, and was complicated.

But everything changed thanks to SMS marketing when brands started allowing their customers to claim a refund by simply sending an SMS, and receive a link to the form in response – which in the case of the Moana/Vaiana promotion, was the last step to getting the $5 discount coupon. The form also contained a box which customers could tick to receive Kellogg’s SMS messages as part of their Kellogg’s Family Rewards.  

And when the client fills out the form and clicks on the send button, they receive a text message from the same number (811811), in which they are provided with a unique link where they can download a coupon to get a $5 discount at the cinema box office. As the coupon is sent to the customer’s email address, they can print the discount coupon off if they want.  

To control the use of coupons, Kellogg’s established a limit of five openings of the link per SMS, and sent a maximum of three coupons per person with, of course, single use for each of them.