Munich – During the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Olympic partner PAYBACK is rewarding its members with "collect gold points". The principle of the campaign, which enables members of Germany's largest bonus programme to collect a staggering amount of extra points, is simple: Every gold medal that the German athletes win increases the points that customers collect on their purchases. Customers will earn double points for two gold medals, triple points for three gold medals, quadruple points for four, and so on. In fact, they can collect up to 15-fold points. "The first time we ran the 'Collect gold points campaign' was during the Summer Olympics in Beijing. It turned out to be the biggest and most successful campaign in the history of PAYBACK, that's why we're rolling it out again for Vancouver", explains Burkhard Grassmann, Spokesman of the PAYBACK Management Board.

The campaign is split into three phases: During the first phase which began on 1 October, customers have been able to register for "Collect gold points" on the PAYBACK website. The second phase, which is currently under way and will run until the start of the Games on 11 February, involves broad-based communications activities. The campaign is the key theme in direct mailings and e-mail newsletters, in the PAYBACK Shop, at over 8,000 branches of retail partners throughout Germany and on the informative and entertaining microsite www.payback.de/olympia. It is further enhanced with media collaborations, prize competitions and a dedicated Olympic category on the PAYBACK blog.

When the Winter Olympic Games get under way, so too will phase three, as the "Collect gold points" TV ad hits screens, presentations are screened on ARD and ZDF and adverts are published in the Bild newspaper. The team from PAYBACK radio will also be reporting daily from the German Haus centre in Vancouver. The numerous and varied programmes and transmissions will be broadcast on German radio and streamed on the PAYBACK website. 

Visitors to the German Haus in Vancouver will also face an additional sporting challenge in the form of the PAYBACK charity tool. At the end of the Winter Olympic Games, all the visitors' on-target hits on a converted biathlon target will be transformed into money that will be donated to the charity Stiftung Deutsche Sporthilfe (German Sports Aid).

PAYBACK has been a highly committed Olympic partner for the last six years and supported the German Olympic teams in Athens in 2004, in Turin in 2006 and in Beijing in 2008. PAYBACK has devised a charity campaign in aid of Deutsche Sporthilfe for each of the games. Altogether, these campaigns have raised a total of some EUR 400,000 in donations to date.