The Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) is a Crown corporation that oversees the retail sale of alcoholic beverages in Québec.

SAQ Inspire is a new customer relationship experience that offers customers the opportunity to receive personalized information and advice based on their tastes, and to earn points (which encourages discovery and participation).

One of the SAQ's major challenges in the coming years will be attracting millennials and encouraging them to discover the world of wine and spirits. Another will involve addressing a major shift observed in the shopping habits and interests of Quebec consumers, whose standards and expectations are increasingly on the rise both online and off.

Based on these insights, a CRM program provided the opportunity to better understand and engage consumers, as well as move away from mass marketing and towards targeted marketing.

As a Crown corporation that believes in responsible drinking, ethical and safety issues were important considerations. The program's success would be measured as much by the improvement of the experience as by healthy sales growth.

The program allows customers to have a shopping experience tailored to their tastes and habits. The company and its agency Cossette needed to explain this innovation while also describing the program, deftly conveying the evolution of SAQ services, respecting the brand's DNA and stressing the program's universality.

Earning points would not be an end in itself, but rather a way to stimulate discovery and participation. This line of thought guided the program's name ("SAQ Inspire"), identity and signature (love learn enjoy.)

SAQ Inspire needed a rich and scalable platform that worked as well digitally as it did in-store. The team created a strong symbol, the bubble, to use in all its forms. In addition to calling to mind a drop of alcohol, it also evokes a thought bubble—symbol of dialogue, ideas and personal taste. The bubble is the first point of contact between the SAQ and its customers. Concretely, it provides a vehicle for content, advice, discoveries, offers and products, customized to the tastes of each member.

We built momentum for the launch over a six-month period, from October 1, 2015, to the end of March 2016, with a four part deployment strategy. To secure the SAQ's strongest customer base, subscribers to SAQ and publications were invited to join before anyone else.

They team used major media outlets, in-store space and proprietary media to maximize the launch's impact; social media, to facilitate adoption and engagement; and content-rich channels, such as newspapers and online, to explain the program experience and its advantages.

The program gathers data with each transaction, interaction and engagement, thus enriching each customer's unique profile. With this hyper-segmented strategy, each customer has a unique contact strategy based on data about them and not merely the offers available. Every point of contact with members fits into the membership life cycle.

To stimulate member engagement, SAQ Inspire increasingly employs business intelligence. To date, this has allowed offers and content to be presented to members on all channels in real-time according to sophisticated targeting rules. Next, the program's evolution will allow the complete integration of the e-commerce website, in-store cash register systems and the customer service department.

A contest offering points and gifts as prizes was added. The more consumers completed their profile with information on themselves, the more they could win. There was also a one 30-second ad and two 15-second ads during the same commercial break and a 10-second ad with subtitles for Montréal Anglos. The media buy also included radio, OOH signage, digital ads (videos, banners, HPTO, etc.) including La Presse+ Magazine and newspaper ads and in-store POS.

In only three months, 1.2 million members signed up, which was 100,000 more than our objective (1,424,931 by July 2016). Seventy percent of SAQ customers have heard about the program and 57% have a favourable opinion of it. Also, 61% of those who haven't yet signed up intend to do so in the next three months and 64% of members are active (two or more transactions) after only three months (the goal was 70% after six months).

There was also a high rate of engagement, with an average open rate of 61% and a 40% CTR, versus an average retail industry CTR of 3%. Thirty six percent of SAQ Inspire members who received an email about the program subsequently made a first transaction. The TV spots performed well, with 63% recall rate (average 54%), 85% identification (average 56%), 64% understanding (average 61%) and 87% appreciation (average 83%), and 39% net effectiveness (average 21%).

The use of La Presse+ and the full-screen format garnered an interaction rate of 190.75% (compared to the average in the alcohol and food industry of 3.76% for full screen). And finally, fans of the SAQ's Facebook page generating the most clicks for SAQ Inspire posts (0.60% click rate, within the industry average of 0.5 to 1.0%).