A comprehensive survey was carried out among KappAhl’s customers, where they were asked about their preferences for a members’ club concept. An analysis of the digital behaviour and smart phone penetration in their target group of women aged 45-55. The conclusion in summary: Yes to rewards, desire for fashion inspiration and good bargains, mobile as primary platform for communication, and a clear reluctance to plastic cards and paper coupons.

With a relatively small CRM team running campaigns on all markets, the need for a sophisticated and integrated technical solution for efficient campaigning and analysis was vital.

Life & Style by KappAhl is a loyalty program, designed for inspirational, sales-driving and targeted communication. By using mobile as primary communication platform, KappAhl can efficiently generate direct responses and call-to-action for sales both in-store and online.

The key direct elements include:

- Personal digital loyalty card for scanning at Point of sale (P.O.S.)

- Rewards (bonus checks) to be used as means of payment at P.O.S

- Segmentation based on actual purchase performance

- Targeted inspirational content + offers

- Targeted push communication (push-notes to app + SMS) with offer

The insight behind the creative concept is that KappAhl’s target group wants to be smart & fashionable. Smart as in using modern tools, and getting true value offers, and fashionable as in being guided and feel fashion safe.

The primary platform for the loyalty program was an app, but members without a smartphone could also access the basic features such as P.O.S identification and bonus check distribution, through SMS and web.

When opening the app for the first time, a scratching game with bonus rewards appeared (lottery tickets are to be target group relevant).

KappAhl invested in new scanning equipment for app scanning capabilities, and enable card free identification, personal bonus checks as means of payment, and coupon redemption.

The launch campaign was supported (in selection) by local TV-commercials and mobile advetisment, but the most efficient channels were owned media: their SMS opt-in database and the sales staff in-store.

The number of members in Life & Style by KappAhl after 6 months exceeds 1 million. The population of Norway is 5,1 million.

The app has been downloaded over 76 000 times. After launch, the app went straight to number 1 in AppStore’s Lifestyle category, and reached no 3 in the overall top list.

The activation rate, defined as the percentage of users logging on after downloading the app, is currently 92% (February 2015 figures).

Offers in the inspiration section in the app converts to online sales 41% better than the equivalent offer in KappAhl’s traditional email send-outs (April 2015 figures).

When performing the first SMS send-out with a graphical offer presentation (including scannable code), the result was so much better than earlier send-outs that the statistics department thought there was an error – but it was all correct.

As an integrated part of their communication, KappAhl had built up their own opt-in database on all national markets, and were pushing discounts and offers via SMS and email. In Sweden 2011, KappAhl migrated this database into a club concept with bonus rewards, using traditional platforms with paper coupons and plastic card for identification. The reward concept itself proved to deliver on the retention KPIs, but the costs for administration and material were high and they scored poorly on brand engagement. That is why KappAhl decided, when rolling out the reward program to the Norwegian market, to go for a new approach and launch Scandinavia’s first integrated, all mobile, loyalty program Life & Style by KappAhl.