2023 Gold Customer Acquisition

Agency: M&C Saatchi

Client: Costa Coffee

Campaign Name: Refer a Charles

Campaign Overview

Costa saw the coronation of King Charles III as a chance to shine a light on its most overlooked member benefit: Refer a friend. The benefit had been lying dormant, relegated to the bottom of comms or forgotten all together. The brand decided to stage a royal revolution.

Strategy

in April 2023, a certain Charles was preparing for his big day. And, so were Costa. As a British brand and staple on UK high street for last 50 years, they wanted to join in with the festivities, but social conversation suggested for most Brit’s “an old guy getting a new hat” was not particularly important. So, instead of focusing on the big man himself, Costa saw the king’s coronation as a chance to include everyone in the weekend, by shining a light on our most overlooked member benefit—Refer a friend. Refer a friend launched as a loyalty benefit in 2021. The scheme meant when they successfully transact, you will both receive 5 beans. However, it had limited success in acquiring customers and therefore was not one of the core loyalty benefits we featured in our loyalty base comms. It was time to stage a royal refer a friend revolution.

Creativity

The campaign didn’t change the reward, or touch the functionality of Refer a friend. Instead, it asked the audience to do one simple thing: ‘Refer a Charles.’

The entire customer base was asked to refer Charleses, and those with Charles-based names—Charlie, Charlotte, Charlene, Carol and Carlos—to the loyalty scheme. For those already on the database, Costa decide to give them a free slice of cake.

The whole mini-campaign lasted for two days and comprised just one email—segmented into Charles and non-Charles—plus an app tile and one push notification.

Results

Within hours of the email landing, it had driven so much traffic to the app that it crashed. The Refer a friend app page itself saw a 1,233% uplift in visits in 24 hours.

There was a 593% uplift in Refer a friend member acquisitions, trebling the total number of new members who joined the loyalty scheme. There was also a 5.6% redemption rate for the free Cake offer, exceeding the target of 5%.

The Charles hunt mini-campaign demonstrated the power of a playful creative wrapper and linking to a cultural moment to increase the relevance of referral.

The Team

M&C Saatchi - Ellie Boxall, Strategy Director - Tanya Nyamadzawo, Senior Account Manager - Andy Dawson, Senior Copywriter - Nathan Bunting, Art Director - Chris Medford, Creative - Michelle Wright, Junior Designer - Tom Kennedy, Creative Director - Lydia Simey, Business Director

Costa Coffee - Calum Johns, Senior CRM and Loyalty Manager, Mattia Milan - CRM Campaign Manager, Matt Graves, CRM Execution Manager, Bethany Judd, CRM Execution Executive