Fuel - Case Studies

T-Mobile Treat Van : All Treat No Trick

The Brief

As with all mobile phone networks, T-mobile’s challenge was to reduce churn and increase value across two very different target audiences; Pay Monthly and Pay as you Go customers. Fuel’s challenge was to quickly demonstrate the value of a targeted customer loyalty reward program, which was designed in order to achieve these objectives over an 8 month period on a limited budget.

Better Decisions

Fuel created a self learning, decision engine which was very much the brains behind the program. Based on the individuals’ behaviour, the engine determines which of the ever changing rewards to offer each customer at different stages of their lifecycle.

Data underpinned the entire strategy. Using a series of models and scoring systems we were able to decide which customers had a higher propensity to churn and which were unlikely to be affected by the rewards.

As well as optimising the communications channel mix, the engine also identified which rewards to hero in the SMS/MMS/Email as space was a premium and not all could be listed.

By analysing social media trends we could highlight the hot topic of the day, use this insight to tailor email copy and see when customers were most active and the best time to send out communications.

Every stage of the programme was tracked, allowing us to understand response, conversion and drop off across the entire customer journey and feed this back to evolve and optimise the process and program.

Greater Returns

Over just the initial 4 campaigns 1.9m unique combinations of rewards, communications and messages were served with 88% of all communications completely unique to an individual.

The MMS, SMS & Email communications delivered significantly higher click-through rates than industry standards. We were able to determine which rewards and channels performed best and to optimise based on this. Targets set for customer website and reward views were well surpassed and we managed to reduce churn for both audience types, equating to significant additional revenue and a 1:4 ROI figure.

Awards / Nominations

DMA Awards - Best Use of Data in a Digital Campaign - Gold Winner 2012

Department of Health: Stroke Campaign Diagnosis

The Challenge

When you've spent £8.2 million on a nationwide advertising campaign, you want to know it's been money well spent. Which is why The Department of Health asked us to work out how effective their Act FAST Stroke campaign had been.

They wanted the hard facts to find out exactly how well it had performed. Both in terms of money spent, and lives saved.

Our Approach

Using data collected from the campaign, we established:

How public awareness of stroke symptoms and the right way to deal with these symptoms had changed, by looking at the number of 999 calls the campaign had generated
How many patients had reached hospital faster as a direct result of the campaign
How many lives were saved or improved as a direct result of the campaign.

Department of Health: Stroke Campaign Diagnosis

Better Decisions. Greater Returns.

We provided the Department of Health with the hard measures of campaign success they were after. Both in terms of how it benefited them and how it benefited society. In fact, thanks to the insights we provided, when the new government cut all marketing campaigns in 2010, this was one of the only ones they deemed important enough to keep running.

We were able to tell the Department of Health how much they should look to spend on future campaigns to get the best possible results. And thanks to the impressive figures we uncovered, they were able to generate positive press coverage.

Awards/Nominations

IPA Marketing Effectiveness Award – Gold 2010

DataStrategy Awards (Marketing Week) - Best Use of Data in Healthcare – 2010 WINNER

DataStrategy Awards (Marketing Week) – Grand Prix – 2010 WINNER

Lexus: Creating a Single Customer View

The Challenge

Collecting oodles of data about your customers is all very well, but how do you make the most of it? In 2003, Lexus asked us to help them improve the way they managed their customer database so they could create more targeted communications to specific customer groups.

Our Approach

We developed a central marketing database designed to:

Pull together all the data feeds across the Lexus network, such as sales data, web data and dealership data
Turn this data into a Single Customer View, so Lexus could see everything they knew about each of their customers (and potential customers) at a glance
Provide a reporting platform, so they can see what is happening
Provide a campaign management tool, so they can run their campaigns more efficiently
Provide a platform for a range of analytics models, so that more layers of intelligence can be added, as and when, to enhance insight and marketing programmes further.

We also integrated a scoring system so they could easily identify their hottest prospects.

Better Decisions. Greater Returns.

Using the database management system we created, Lexus now seamlessly deliver the right message, to the right customer, at the right time via the right channel, whether it's someone who has shown a passing interest in the brand or someone who is ready to buy.

The models we created for them help them understand where prospects are in the purchase cycle, and alert them to pass potential leads to their dealers when the time is right. This means their dealers can now spend more time converting serious leads, and less time pursuing dead-end leads.

The results speak for themselves. A recent success, driven by the efficiency of their marketing systems has been the launch of the Lexus CT, which has smashed targets by 10%.

News International: Revenue and ROI forecasting

The Challenge

How do you boost sales of a flagging product? With newspapers seeing a gradual decline in circulation, News International wanted to get a better understanding of how their customers were interacting with their various sub-products, to help them cross-sell, up-sell and more.

With 16 different sub-products under their wing, all independently targeting the same database of customers with everything from Sun Bingo to the Times Wine Club, it was time for some consolidated thinking.

Our Approach

In order to help them understand more about their customers we combined a multitude of their customer datasets, looking across 17 million people and their interactions with News International sub-products.

Then, for each individual customer, we looked at:

How they first interacted with News International
Which ‘product(s)’ they went on to use, when, over what time frame, and how much they spent
Which communications they received from News International, and what effect the messaging had on them
How much these communications cost and the ROI.

News International: Revenue and ROI forecasting

Better Decisions. Greater Returns.

We gave News International a clear view of how their 17 million customers were interacting with their various newspapers and ‘products’, at a glance.

We helped them identify where there is value in sending customers communications to up-sell or cross-sell products.

And we provided a full set of recommendations on how to improve the effectiveness of these communications, including everything from data & analytics, segmentation & profiling, creative & messaging and measurement & evaluation.

We also created a planning tool, showing them how much money should be spent on which products at different stages of the customer lifecycle to generate the best return on investment.

Department of Health: Testing Strategies in a Modelled Population

The Challenge

Teenage pregnancy and Chlamydia prevalence rates were too high in England and the Department of Health needed an effective campaign to combat this.

In the past they believed it was unprotected one night stands as the major cause, so they focussed their campaigns on this. But continuing high pregnancy and STIs showed this hypothesis was flawed.

Our brief was to find the real reason.

Our Approach

We built a SIM that is, a Social Influence Model.

Using a sample of 4,000 people between 15 and 20 years old, we simulated the sexual attitudes and behaviours of teenagers throughout England. From the sample we fed in their age, gender and use of contraception and type to the model, then created a social network of their sexual ties and how they interacted with each other.

From this we could track statistics from the simulation run, which in turn generated insights that could be used by the Department of Health to make better decisions on how to get the right message to the right people.

Department of Health: Testing Strategies in a Modelled Population

Better Decisions. Greater Returns

The SIM turned the Department of Health's original hypothesis on its head.

It was not one night stands but fledgling relationships where the high incidence of pregnancy and Chlamydia occurred. Nor was it a lack of contraception but a failure of contraception that was the cause.

Through these insights, the Department of Health changed their marketing strategy and made a more effective use of their budget, focussing on the right messages to teenagers. The result a holistic communication campaign encouraged teenagers to talk about their sexual health and led to greater returns for the Department of Health's money.