Beauty club makeover a hit

Tequila and Colenso.99's work on the campaign was described as world-class.

A makeover of department store Farmers' Beauty Club loyalty programme, which boosted sales through the club by almost 39 per cent, has won top honours at the annual Direct Marketing Awards.

The Farmers' programme took out the RSVP Grand Prix - the top award for strategy, creativity and results - at this year's black-tie awards ceremony, in Auckland last Friday night.

The other top award, the Supreme Nexus - recognising the products, services and processes behind direct marketing campaigns - went to the architects of a mail campaign to inform Air New Zealand airpoints members about changes to the scheme.

Direct marketing agency Tequila and specialist retail advertising agency Colenso.99's work on the Farmers' campaign was described as world-class by Marketing Association chief executive Keith Norris.

The association organises the annual awards.

The six-year-old Beauty Club was relaunched last March with Tequila using its sophisticated database to mail targeted catalogue inserts to members along with more detailed personal rewards point information.

Between the relaunch and the end of last year, Beauty Club sales grew 38.9 per cent and membership increased by 48,500 to over 311,000.

Tequila's managing director, Ben Goodale, said the Beauty Club had grown out of Farmers' recognition that health and beauty products were a core category for driving department store sales.

"You've now got the situation where pretty much half of their sales in that category come from members of the Beauty Club, which is outstanding," Goodale said. "I don't think many other retailers would have that level of database to customer loyalty."

Farmers marketing head Dean Cook said the Beauty Club revamp was part of a wider store makeover and tighter focus on female customers.

"Retail is having a bit of a resurgence in the marketing area. We've always been seen as an unglamorous rubber-hits-the-road end of the spectrum without the big advertising spends of the big brand campaigns," Cook said. "It's nice to see the more cutting edge of retail marketing recognised by our marketing peers."

Norris said the Farmers campaign win showed direct marketing was maturing as a discipline.

"The fact that a retailer has won the Grand Prix is an indication that different sections of the market are using DM effectively," he said.

* The Marketing Association's website has a full list of Direct Marketing awards winners (see link below.)