New proof-of-purchase mechanics
Dominican soft drink brand, Kellogg’s Ecuador, Sprite/Coca-Cola · 2019 — today
Join product promotions without a unique promotional code.
Result +1M participants in the selfie mechanic, Dominican Republic
- Capture product proof
- Submit evidence
- Review proof
The problem
In many mass-consumer promotions, the product is already distributed or production constraints make it impossible to mark it with promo codes. How do you run a mass promotion without a code? The industry had no answer.
What we built
We invented three different mechanics to solve the same impossible problem.
Selfie with the product
Soft drink, Dominican Republic. The proof of purchase was a selfie of the consumer with the bottle. OCR and computer vision validated the bottle type, product and flavor, the brand on the package and the presence of a human face.
Batch validation by chat
Kellogg’s McDougall, Ecuador. The product was already on shelves without codes, but each package carried a batch number (repeated up to 20,000 times) and a production time (repeated up to 8 times). An automated conversation guided the consumer step by step, asking for package data plus clues only found on the physical product: flavor, weight, specific words.
Video UGC over WhatsApp
Sprite/Coca-Cola. Consumers recorded their own version of the Sprite TV commercial with the product in the scene and sent it through WhatsApp Business, which compressed the files and solved hosting. The videos landed on a review board for the Coca-Cola team.
Progressive validation in the batch mechanic cut fraud without unique codes.
The result
Three code-free proof-of-purchase mechanics in operation: more than 1 million participants in the selfie mechanic and more than 10,000 videos for Sprite. All of them are integrated into the Promos Plug & Play platform.
Why it’s innovation
Each mechanic solves the same impossible problem with a different technology: computer vision, conversational validation and UGC over messaging. The standard industry answer was a code under the cap. These mechanics extend the plug & play platform to scenarios where traditional solutions fail.
