Challenge

Until they’re sneezing their faces off, people don’t plan for allergies. Allergies aren’t just seasonal, they’re local and can change day-to-day based on pollen counts and weather. To bring sufferers to Walgreens to make them comfortable again, you can’t just run broad media inside a “campaign period,” you have to be nimble, flexible, and there when a person most needs you.

To drive in-store traffic and promote its savings on allergy products, Walgreens wanted to stand out from the crowd and connect consumers with a product they needed, when they needed it.

Solution

To reduce media waste and use advertising as a service, Walgreens turned to Clinch and Instagram Stories. Users’ locations were married with weather data from IBM Watson. When pollen counts reached high levels locally, consumers in the area would be alerted and provided with a dynamic video and a coupon to purchase over-the-counter allergy medicine in-store.

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Results

The campaign was rigorously tested, and changes to creative were made in real time.  The campaign generated critical insights into Walgreens’ client base and proved that each market had different requirements for success. The creative units that showed an animated video with a coupon for allergy medicine followed by messaging around high pollen counts performed the best in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, New York and Philadelphia; while in Boston, LA, San Francisco and Minneapolis St. Paul, Stories that first informed that pollen counts were high followed by a coupon, performed best.

Clinch created 160 creative variations, personalized by location, and tested a Story featuring the coupon value and a Story featuring the “high pollen” message. The click through rate was 276% higher than previous allergy-related campaigns at a cost per person reached 41% lower and a cost per click 64% lower.

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