Challenge
Ollie's Bargain Outlet is one of the fastest-growing retailers in the United States, with 476+ stores across the country. Ollie’s had a goal to increase brand awareness and traffic in their new Texas stores. To help accomplish this, they turned to their partner Kargo to help drive in-store foot traffic using their comprehensive omni-commerce solutions. Ollie’s had successfully used Kargo Commerce to strengthen their social media presence for four years, and now they looked to Kargo for a full-funnel solution to rev up awareness, consideration, and conversion.
Focused on Ollie’s specific goals, the Kargo team created a unified campaign that would deliver a cohesive consumer experience by combining approaches from its comprehensive platform:
Awareness
In order to successfully introduce Ollie's to this new market, Kargo needed to go beyond its efforts on social media and develop a strong, more comprehensive creative strategy to establish a connection between Ollie’s visual identity and core messaging and its new audience.
Consideration
Leveraging a multi-objective approach and expanding into new channels, Kargo leaned on its differentiated creative to push consumers further down the funnel in order to lift brand favorability and purchase intent.
Conversion
Despite the buzz around the brand in the US, awareness of Ollie’s brand in Texas was low. Without e-commerce capabilities, the retailer asked Kargo to build a digital campaign driving foot traffic/in-store sales.
As part of the effort to strengthen Ollie’s brand presence and ultimately drive in-store sales, Kargo manually updated designs to reflect fluctuating inventory and frequently overhauled sales promotions to mirror the available stock.
The Kargo team utilized the depth of its expansive capabilities and executed an integrated campaign to deliver a strategic and multi-layered solution that achieved powerful results for Ollie’s.
Solution
Kargo delivered a triple threat to help Ollie’s drive foot traffic in their new locations:
Focused Targeting
To reach three key lifestyle and demographic targets: bargain hunters, cord-cutters, and 35+, the Kargo team activated its proprietary Cohort Intelligence solution. This is an AI-powered algorithm that uses natural language processing and predictive performance analysis that identifies the most effective contextual environments to reach specific audiences. It’s also cookie-less, so it addresses privacy and technology regulated concerns. And to ensure that these consumer groups could quickly pick up on all of Ollie’s bargains, Kargo also implemented a geo-targeting strategy to serve customers that were within driving distance to specific locations.
Distinctive Branding
Ollie’s Bargain Outlet has a clear identity characterized by a unique and exciting shopping experience with an inviting and witty persona. Staying close to Ollie’s endearing treasure hunt-like atmosphere and tapping into the Lone Star state’s proud and beloved imagery, the Kargo team created compelling, locally relevant creative. Customized and attention-grabbing, the creative executions resonated with residents of Texas -- but still maintained Ollie's strong brand identity of “Real Brands, Real Bargains.”
Conversion-Driven Executions
Kargo created Ollie’s first-ever Digital Circular with the purpose of emulating Ollie’s current print advertising efforts. With the heavy task of managing product highlights on a weekly basis to reflect Ollie’s ever-changing inventory and promotions, it was critical for Kargo to offer a high level of service coupled with a multilayered solution to ensure success. Kargo handled thousands of weekly imagery, pricing, and sales adjustments in order to provide customers with a seamless, accurate, and engaging experience. The result? Consumers were able to swipe through a carousel of items every week, showcasing the available inventory, in-store pricing, and discounts based on their specific location.
Results
Ollie’s got the boost they needed, thanks to Kargo! This campaign demonstrated a clear intersection of unique design and cutting-edge technology and serves as a strong example of Kargo’s creative science working to deliver extraordinary outcomes for brands.
Together with the power of Kargo Commerce’s solution, Kargo's targeted and attention-grabbing ad units reached a broad audience across the state of Texas and delivered benchmark-busting results for Ollie’s.
The Numbers
Adding the Kargo Brand campaign created a 7% lift in sales (as measured by Mastercard)
The campaign generated a 6x return on ad spend with substantial incremental sales as measured by Mastercard.