By John Hennessy
During a holiday promotion for members of its Sparkling Circle loyalty club, Moët Hennessy USA offered one of three "sparkling music mixes" for holiday entertaining.
The offer wasn't for a CD compilation but let members select and download the compilation. That approach delivered both lower cost for Moet and immediate reward for members.
During a September program offering a free wine bottle stopper, postings of the offer to "free stuff" web sites resulted in more redemptions than Moet planned. This resulted in a PIN code being included in the email for the music offer. That code let Moet track responses and which compilation was chosen.
The PIN code on the song downloads allowed Moet to "keep it within the target audience," said Anette Kreipke, VP-director of account management at 141 Worldside's interactive division 141XM that ran the program for Moet.
Moderator's Comment: What can be learned from runaway success besides ways to limit future runaway successes?
Moet learned the power of information sharing in this internet age. Whether it is the sharing of codes or links to online coupons, if there's value out there, there are sites and people who will share it with others.
Viral marketers leverage this kind of sharing. Traditional marketers are sometimes taken by surprise by its scale.
Moet was correct in implementing its holiday tunes promotion with a pass code, to limit downloads and improve tracking. But they would be incorrect not to learn from their accidental experience with viral marketing.
While they had not planned to give away as many wine stoppers as they did, it happened and, with practice, it could happen again, on their terms and for the benefit of their brand. - George Anderson - Moderator