In 2009 SUBWAY® ran a major sales promotion called Midwinter Christmas, and in parallel ran a staff incentive to encourage customer registration of the SUBCARD.  The sales promotion was a big hit, but the staff incentive (SUBCARD ‘Smile’) wasn’t. In 2010 the same opportunity arose to run a registration incentive with staff during the Midwinter Christmas promotion. This time, text messaging was used to reach and motivate staff.

The use of texting, with store targets and rewards in place, to motivate each store has been a breakthrough.

The campaign achieved a 1488% increase in SUBCARD registration over two weeks - a whopping 14,889 registrations (usually an average of 500 a week). There was an 85% store participation, and the incentive cost a fraction of that of the previous year’s ‘Smile’ mystery shopper programme – great ROI.