COMMUNICATING REWARD
Ladbrokes uses scratch cards to boost engagement with benefits brand
Sports betting and gaming company Ladbrokes says it has doubled engagement with its benefits brand by launching a scratch-card competition.
ClubLadbrokes was first launched as the company’s benefits brand in 2008 to 15,000 employees. Based on Asperity’s shopping discounts platform, Reward Gateway, the communications strategy aimed to maximise employee savings and was backed by “solid reward and recognition branded communications, segmented to different workforce groups”.
%ADVERT%
Scratch-card competition
Seeking to build on this success, Ladbrokes’ reward team has been working closely with Asperity to develop a “two-tier engagement-boosting competition”, using a familiar communications method that “has never been tried before in employee benefits”. Scratch cards were posted to home addresses along with a personalised letter to drive the benefits message home to employees and their families.
The cards directed staff to log-in to the ClubLadbrokes web site and enter the unique prize number written under the scratch-off panel on their card. Prizes included a family photo shoot, multimedia laptop and a year’s subscription to the Gourmet Society.
A second competition was run in parallel, aimed at motivating district and regional managers to promote the scheme to their teams. Managers were briefed and given a competition letter and toolkit to support their efforts. Points were awarded to managers for every team member who signed up to ClubLadbrokes. Prizes were given for the most points achieved.
Results of communications programme
This dual competition strategy has paid significant dividends, says Ladbrokes:
Scheme employee engagement “rocketed”, with 10% of the workforce signing up within the first five days of receiving the competition letter and scratch card.
Traffic to the ClubLadbrokes web site increased by 600% on the competition launch day
Monthly average for employee spend on the shopping discounts site has more than doubled.
A final word
“We’re thrilled at the outcome of this initiative. We are really proud of the ClubLadbrokes brand and the benefits included in the package offer genuine, real-life savings on everyday things such as groceries, petrol, and even childcare. With a dispersed workforce across four business units - with retail outlets being the largest with over 2,000 shops - and head office locations it can be a challenge for us to communicate effectively across a busy organisation. Communicating to our employees via their home addresses meant that we could reach those who were part-time or lacked internet access at work, all our staff and their families and the managers’ competition ensured that internal, team-based communication was optimised.”
- Sara Davies, Reward and HR Services Director, Ladbrokes.
Want to know more?
A short case study examining communications planning at Ladbrokes is available on the Asperity web site at
www.asperity.co.uk/our-customers/case-studies/ladbrokes-plc.
Asperity Employee Benefits is the UK’s “leading provider of integrated voluntary benefits”. Over 300 of the UK’s employers and over one million employees rely on Asperity to provide employee benefits programmes. To find out more visit www.asperity.co.uk.