A Tale of 3 Cities Incentive Program
Clients
Kraft Heinz
Unilever Food Solutions
Goodman Fielder Food Service
Wattie’s Food Service
The Tale of 3 Cities incentive program was a strategic alliance between three non-competing food manufacturers who were all selling to the same customers.
This was the fifth year in a series of incentive programs and the growth for each of the three coalition partners was extraordinary given that the overall market growth was 2%.
What we achieved
The Challenge
While working with these major foodservice brands, their goal was to ultimately increase year-on-year sales growth within their business. They wanted to motivate their wholesale channel customers to achieve a substantial growth target over a 12-month period. Our Key Performance Indicator (KPI) was to achieve double digit growth in a market that was only growing by 2%. What made this even more challenging was that this was growth-on-growth in a program that had already been running for four years.
The Solution
We created a money-can’t-buy travel itinerary to three of the world’s most exotic destinations and created truly unique, chance-of-a-life time experiences within them. We selected Hong Kong, Paris and Monte Carlo.
To add further value, and because we knew we were talking to successful independent business owners, we also developed and ran an international business forum that focused on arming our client’s customers with knowledge to drive efficiencies in their business.
We structured the program into three tiers. As customers progressed towards their sales goals, they were invited to participate in the next destination. Having strategic alliances between the participating companies meant that all costs were shared equally by the partners.
All the variable costs associated with the travel program were fully covered by the incremental profit generated from each customer. This is known as Incremental’s self-funding model called “Upside Only”.
Earning your ticket
To help the customer earn their spot in the program, we gave them the ability to achieve a combination of targets, rather than one unrealistic target from just one of the suppliers.
We built the campaign identity and communicated the program through a bespoke website, video content and email. However, to kick off, we created a launch kit which gave our client’s sales team something truly exciting to present to their customers.
The program specific website was supported by a regular email campaign which included statements on performance and event related content.
This access to up-to-date information and progress helped them change their sales conversations with customers from ‘What’s your price?’ to ‘How much do I need to order so I can come on your event?’
We managed all of the sales data provided by each of our three clients on a fortnightly basis. This data was imported into the website and allowed us to produce other sales tools which were vital to driving the results:
Traffic Light Reports – Easily identifies which customers need focus based on performance using a traffic light colour coding system.
‘What if’ calculator – Determines what a customer would need to purchase to achieve a target based on results to date, time elapsed and time remaining.
‘Step Up Analysis’ – Details by SKU what the customer would need to purchase to achieve a target, based on what they purchased in the corresponding period last year.
Flying on a jet plane
Our client’s customers had worked hard throughout the year to achieve some significant sales targets in order to attend the event. It was then our job to ensure that they were rewarded with a memorable, once in a lifetime experience that left them wanting more. This required meticulous planning in the lead up to the event and flawless end to end execution on the event.
Result
We achieved what we had set out to do! We increased sales growth for our three program partners. 67% of our client’s customers that attended had achieved in the previous year. 12 customers, common to all three suppliers, achieved all four of the sales incentives offered since 2011. 243 delegates travelled to Hong Kong, the tier one destination.
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