2016 Silver Best customer journey

Agency Wunderman UK

Client Shell

Campaign summary

Miniature humans to show it’s the little things that make a difference

Campaign overview

Fuel has become more and more commoditised. Customer loyalty had fallen by 6% in a year. Every 100,000 customers kept engaged equated to $52 million annual spend.

Shell had to make customers value the brand and loyalty programme, so they’d choose Shell more often.

Strategy

On the surface, it’s hard to see the difference between filling up at one brand of station and filling up at the next.

Fuel is fuel, right?

And frankly, unless you don’t have something they expect they simply won’t notice.

As a premium fuel brand, Shell introduced a number of product and service differentiators that add up to a more welcoming experience.

Research identified those key moments of friction that customers experience when they fill up and injected them into a CRM strategy.

Whether that’s a lack of good food to choose from or no free Wi-Fi to get online, Shell needed to be there to help customers see that there are fuel stations and then there are service stations.

Creativity

Shell needed to show they treat every customer as a valued guest.

The best way to do that was to show that Shell take trouble over the details. They introduced a new campaign thought: ‘It’s the little things that make a difference’, to demonstrate the individual pieces of care, service and reward that add up to a welcoming experience from Shell.

To dramatise the thought they created one overarching visual theme that places miniature human figures in photographic images of real life situations.

Supporting visual icons emphasised the little things that Shell does differently, whether that’s rewards earned from loyalty programmes or services such as mobile payment, free Wifi, or premium fuel.

Shell revamped their communications journey to find the moments where ‘the little things’ would make a difference in the minds of customers, using DM, email, SMS and mobile app to deliver the message.

Results

Not only do more customers engage with Shell’s CRM but they also visit more and fill up more at Shell.

Loyalty members now have a brand preference five times higher, visit twice as often and are spending 120% more.

By reminding them that ‘the little things make a difference’, Shell has given them a reason to proactively choose the Shell experience.

All of which translates into a significant commercial improvement from 2014 - 107% revenue growth.

Team

Sherine Yap (Global CRM Manager) • Kate Metreweli (Global CRM Strategy) • Pierluigi Bosco (Senior CRM Channel Manager) • Annie Gass (Strategy Director) • Jonathan Sewell (Global Business Director) • Matthew Addison (Data Strategy Director) • Vladimir Bannov (Data Strategist) • Dan Cooper (Targeting Lead) • Richard Kenyon (Creative Director) • Nigel Webb (Creative Director) • Taj Taak (Senior Account Director) • Eloisa Puentes (Global Account Manager) • Ken Martin (Strategy Director) • Justin Manly (Head of Database & Operations) • Emma James (CRM Reporting Manager) • Sheran Punia (Strategy Director)