15-fold points for customers – over EUR 20 million in additional sales for partners

The "Gold medal points" campaign run during the Olympic Games in Beijing has been the most successful cross-partner campaign so far in the history of the Payback bonus programme. For the first time, customers were able to collect 15-fold points which in turn generated additional sales of over EUR 20 million for participating partner companies.

In terms of brand values, this most recent Olympic campaign also surpassed the figures for those run in conjunction with Athens 2004 and Turin 2006. The recognition rating of Payback rose to its highest value of 83 percent, while advertising recall amounted to 70 percent. The campaign was communicated in a total of over 36 million mailings. For the first time, new advertising formats to complement the existing communication channels were tested successfully. These included the medal table in the BILD newspaper and an online viral campaign.

Alongside E-On and the Sparkassen Finance Group, Payback is also able to celebrate success in presenting the Olympics on ARD and ZDF. According to a recent study by Sport + Markt, Payback achieved the best level of awareness of all the programme sponsors. A comparison with other official partners of the Olympics even demonstrates that these values are on a par with those of Adidas and Coca-Cola.

About Payback:
Payback, Germany’s largest bonus programme, has been on the market since March 2000 and today around 60 percent of German households have a Payback card. According to an Emnid study, the card has become a firm favourite in Germans’ wallets and is the third most common card, after health insurance and EC payment cards. In 2004, the term "Payback" entered the Duden, the leading German dictionary. More information on Payback and participating partner companies is available at www.payback.de and www.payback.net.