We will have other examples of top brands selling very well in Canada using Deal Marketing. For now though, let’s focus our attention on what we are officially calling the 2nd most sold local offer, daily deal or Group buy in Canada over the past 4 years. (not in terms of dollar value, in terms of units sold)
Starbucks is announcing an online offer through Groupon, $5 for a $10 gift card. Great deal.
The offer is being announced as an online offer. They have, thus far, sold over 25,000 vouchers and the deal isn’t done yet. That’s right, over 25,000 customers will be walking into Starbucks over the next few weeks and picking up their fix, hopefully buying others stuff over $10.
This is the 2nd largest amount of vouchers sold for 1 deal. Congratulations Starbucks and Groupon.
Who has the the overall record? Well, that distinction goes to Living Social who ALSO sold a Starbucks offer earlier on in the year. But they sold, get this, just over 145,000 vouchers across Canada. That record will stand for awhile.
BTW, Groupon and Starbucks are running the same deal in the UK, so far they have sold over 77,000 vouchers and counting.
This offer is valuable for Starbucks way beyond the amount of vouchers sold. They will ensure that these 25,000 or so customers continue their habit of going to Starbucks for their fix as opposed to Second Cup, Tim Hortons and the fast growing service of Mc’Cafe from Mc Donalds.
Mcdonalds ran a free coffee promotion earlier this year. We wrote about it. Free is great and all and McDonalds spent an incredible amount of money on traditional advertising to drive traffic. However Starbucks, through Groupon and Living Social, can target customers (through their email) the next time they run a promo, Groupon and Living Social now know who exactly is a Starbucks customer and where they are located. That is gold for marketers and that is one of the more valuable benefits of working with a Deal provider like Groupon, Living Social, Wagjag, Teambuy, Buytopia, Tuango or other in Canada. Traditional advertising the way Mcdonalds did it simply cannot provide this kind of targeted customer data.
The success of this offer and the one from Living Social should be another reason for larger brands to consider Deal Marketing in Canada.
Although this is a very successful deal across Canada, here is one thing that bothers the hell out of me about this Groupon deal. This deal is NOT being offered on the Groupon Quebec sites!!
Why? Is this an oversight? Is it intentional? Probably because Groupon Quebec runs on a completely different technology platform and is managed by the folks in Europe for some strange reason that I still do not understand. Their marketing, tech platform, PR, all managed by the Groupon France team..the same team that Groupon bought a few years ago with the purchase of City Deals. The rest of Canada is managed by Groupon Chicago, but Quebec is managed by France. I guarantee, yes, I guarantee (Groupon can hold me to that) that if their Quebec team was managed locally, or if they had a Canadian team, then their sales would improve dramatically in Quebec. (I’ll wait for Groupon to contact me to discuss this!)
Regardless, congrats to Starbucks on having BOTH the number 1 record in Canada and now the number 2 offer in terms of vouchers sold. Canadians, it seems, love their coffee. If the folks at Tim Horton’s, McDonalds, Second Cup, Dunkin Donuts or other coffee places are reading this, then do give me a call to discuss how your brand can truly benefit from Deal Marketing/Deal Commerce and which providers would be best suited to work with you in Canada.