Stocking Up on Canada Dry

Online broker E^* Trade and Cadbury-Schweppes brand Canada Dry teamed up this winter to create a high-impact promotion leveraging the popularity of online investing to sell product in Ontario, Canada, during the busy holiday period.

A sweepstakes running through the end of March is giving away one $200,000 and four $5,000 accounts with E^* Trade, although anyone who opens an account with the broker in conjunction with the promotion receives five free trades.

The Stock Up With Canada Dry campaign was developed by the Toronto office of The Marketing Store Worldwide, which recently merged with Opticom Promotion Group in Canada. (The bicontinental agency has headquarters in the U.S. and U.K.) Opticom had worked with Canada Dry for several years before the merger.

“We wanted to partner with a financial institution because saving money is really top of mind during the holiday period, and a large financial award really made sense for the brand and our target audience,” says Peter Osicka, vp-promotions for The Marketing Store. It helped to “ride the wave of E^* Trade's massive advertising campaign. Plus, we were able to splash the E^* Trade logos all over the Canada Dry packaging to really create awareness.”

Packaging on 4.4 million two-liter bottles and 12- and 24-packs of Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Diet Ginger Ale, Canada Dry Club Soda and Tonic Water carry promotional bursts with information about the prizes. To play, consumers turn over the label and check off three squares from a grid of 81 — the object being to select the squares containing Canada Dry logos — then mail them in for judging. Consumers can also participate online at stockupwithcanadadry.com by following on-screen prompts.

The campaign was supported by P-O-P, ads in newspapers, and an online ad campaign. In addition, the Canada Dry and E^* Trade Web sites were linked. More than 60 percent of the consumers who landed on the promotional URL originated from the E^* Trade Web site, “which proves that we chose the right partner,” says Osicka. “It was just one of many benefits of partnering with an online business that gets tremendous traffic from an audience that matches [Canada Dry's].”

One Good Link

To create further awareness for the promotion, Canada Dry partnered with 3Web Network, a free Internet service provider. The deal gave the brand access to proprietary software letting it target a 25- to 49-year-old audience with ads and offers appealing to their specific interests. Consumers register for the service by answering about 30 demographic and lifestyle-related questions. Then, when subscribers log onto their browsers, they are automatically served Canada Dry and E^* Trade banner ads.

Canada Dry, which is anticipating this to be its “most successful consumer promotion ever,” according to Osicka, has generated more than 6,000 direct hits to the promotional URL, 3,000 unique registrations, and 2,000 mail-in entries so far.

A second sweeps overlay, available only online, invites participants to complete a market research survey asking details about their shopping habits and personal information in return for a chance to win $1,000. More than 1,000 people have taken the survey to date, and the company has plans to “market back to everyone who answers the questions and opts-in to receive future promotional offers and product information,” says Osicka.

The survey asks what consumers think about the Web site, how it should be improved, and what they want to see on the site in the future, along with such demographic queries as what language is spoken at home, age, marital status, education-level, and salary. While at the site, consumers can also view a humorous 30-second Canada Dry TV spot.

Cadbury-Schweppes' family of brands also includes Dr Pepper, 7-Up, Schweppes, A&W, Squirt, Oasis, and, as of last October, Snapple.

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Amie Smith reports on international trends for PROMO Magazine. Reach her at amie-smith9@aol.com