In a trial at the Rochester, Indiana branch of the 5,700 strong International Dairy Queen fast food and desserts chain, customers who sign up for a new loyalty and promotions programme are being issued with special RFID tags that they can affix to their mobile phones.
The new service has been developed by mobile loyalty and rewards specialist Tetherball. Once issued with the special Tetherball Tag, customers attach it to their mobile phone and then activate it by texting the ID number on the tag to a control centre. Then, each time they make a purchase, they are uniquely identified at either a contactless point-of-sale terminal supplied by Vivotech or a dedicated kiosk so that they can gain or redeem loyalty points.
Tetherball’s back office system then also allows them to be sent targeted marketing and promotional offers based on their purchasing history, via either standard SMS text messages or via mobile coupons redeemable in-store.
Tetherball also provides customers with a real time web-based reporting system called Mobiquitous that delivers instant, detailed analysis of coupon redemption rates and the overall performance of the programme. As well as more standard coupons and discounts, this also allows short term offers to be created — such as a discount on purchases made between 4pm and 6pm that day — based on current trading conditions.
“We are a big believer in the future of mobile marketing and are very excited to be partnering with Tetherball,” says International Dairy Queen’s Jamie Guse. “Through their innovative RFID‐based Mobile Loyalty Program we are able to provide great offers to our customers in a fun and easy way while precisely measuring the effectiveness of our Dairy Queen Mobile Rewards Program.”
“Mobile marketers have been struggling to develop a solution that not only provides an easy method to deliver targeted offers to mobile users, but allows them to truly measure the return on their investment,” adds Jay Highley, president and COO of Tetherball. “Our new technology solution does just that in a radically simple way.”
