#MarketingEventsAwards 2021 highlight: foodpanda tests new markets with digital flyers

The pandemic had led to limited opportunities for on-ground and face-to-face customer engagement and marketing efforts. To expand its customer base, amplify the current order-and-delivery culture, and venture into untapped audiences, foodpanda worked with CEA Creatives and Events on an online flyering campaign, which saw more than 10,000 new customer acquisitions within just three months of the launch. 

Foodpanda and CEA’s ability to integrate their pre-pandemic marketing strategy into the online space, while taking the opportunity to test demand for its services in new cities, impressed the judges and secured them the bronze award for Best Use of Influencers/KOLs at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's Marketing Events Awards 2021.  

Challenge 

While flyering has been a long-practised go-to marketing strategy to get the right message to the right market, the onset of the pandemic and social restrictions that followed resulted in limited opportunities for on-ground and face-to-face customer engagement and marketing efforts. 

Foodpanda wanted to find a new way to expand its customer base, amplify the current order-and-delivery culture, and venture into untapped major cities in the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao regions. 

Strategy 

As the lockdown situation in the Philippines continued to persist, foodpanda worked with CEA Creatives and Events on how it could continue to engage with its customer base. It also envisioned expanding its reach to potential customers in expansion and incubation cities, as it looked to grow its services nationwide.

However, its marketing mobility was confined due to limited inter-city access, as well as restricted opening hours and operations of businesses. 

The nature of the digital space was very attractive as it possessed the kind of features and access it required to communicate its message – direct contact through social media to existing and new users, creative engagement, and a strong channel for implementing contactless flyering and purchase activation.

If executed correctly, going digital would present foodpanda with a strong and endless avenue for growing new customer acquisition. 

Foodpanda’s target audience is generally aged between 18 to 45. They are engaged and active on Facebook, well-versed in the use of mobile applications, often – if not always – on their mobile phones, and are strong advocates of online services.

Additionally, they have more than enough spending power to take advantage of services such as foodpanda’s for its ease of use, rich interaction, and swift responsiveness. 

With the target customer profile and characteristics in mind, foodpanda worked with CEA to design and implement an online flyering services campaign that would appeal to all these market tendencies. 

It aimed to digitise its efforts such that the new customers’ journeys would be fast-tracked by bringing conversion to the forefront. 

Foodpanda wanted to connect with its potential users, tap into their sense of fun, and get them to order with ease from their homes, workplaces, or wherever they might be. Its ultimate goal was to use social networks and digital devices to communicate and nudge customers to choose foodpanda – at a tap or swipe of a screen. 

Execution 

Foodpanda primarily incorporated gamified features using generic and unique voucher codes embedded onto its digital flyers. The digital flyers were generated as Facebook posts and advertisements, and were geo-boosted to focus on priority areas it identified; based on a classification of city growth and projected performance expansion 

Foodpanda also aggressively ran continuous flyer postings as geo-targeted and boosted advertisements on Facebook, providing generic vouchers, as well as unique vouchers specific to customers in identified cities nationwide. 

Foodpanda’s online flyering was already available in existing cities where it has a strong foothold, but it extended its geo-targeting to areas and regions where it was still a relatively new entrant to the locality. 

Additionally, foodpanda engaged social media promoters and influencers as its “brand ambassadors” for the duration of the campaign. The ambassadors were tasked with blast messaging its online flyers and sharing them as Facebook postings to a broader new customer base. 

Foodpanda also collaborated with them to incentivise voucher redemptions by hosting online raffle draws with prizes from foodpanda on their Facebook accounts.

This encouraged existing and new customers to join in the fun and thrill of winning rewards, while actively sharing feedback and user experience postings on their own Facebook accounts. This manner of digital user engagement has opened up more visible opportunities for customer loyalty and advocacy growth. 

Results 

In the first quarter of 2021 alone, foodpanda’s online flyering conversion yielded a total of 16,580 new customer acquisitions in nine underdeveloped cities it identified; attaining 95.5% of the allotted total redemption it had targeted for those areas. 

The platform also saw a total of 19,474 new customer acquisitions – 61.95% of allotted redemptions – and 10,272 new customer acquisitions – 48.56% of allotted redemptions.  

By the end of the campaign, foodpanda had exceeded its target conversions by a huge margin. There was clear growth in new customer acquisitions reflected by total redemptions of generic and unique digital voucher codes in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. It also saw an increase in usage and redemptions in cities where the platform’s presence was still in its initial stages.