Raiffeisen Club: a satnav-based marketing application

The company

evolaris is Austria’s leading competence centre for mobile innovation based in Graz. It was set up in 2000 as a network of experts in different areas of competence, aiming to bridge the gap between the results of research and the economy. The network focuses on the conception and development of applications for the web and mobile devices as well as the evaluation of business models for an economically useful exploitation of mobile technologies.

The challenge

Among its other activities, in the retail sector the company identified an opportunity in the recent radical changes in how brands communicate with customers. Customer loyalty is the key to success in retail and the phone is becoming the preferred connecting tool between the point-of-sale and existing advertising channels. In working for Raiffeisen Bank, evolaris’ challenge was to devise a mobile loyalty solution to support multi-channel customer loyalty programmes.

The satellite solution

evolaris developed a mobile loyalty platform that integrates multiple channels (such as SMS, websites, social media, apps) to provide an integrated digital communication solution with the members of the Raiffeisen Club – a loyalty programme for the young target group of the bank. The mobile phone app in particular, developed in 2010 relies on the smartphone’s satnav to promote discounts, tickets to football games, concerts and other events, to members of the club, based on their location, through push notifications. The app lists the events based on the distance to the customer’s location, Raiffeisen Banks and ATMs and indicates the quickest way to get to them. This ensures that customers always have relevant information at their hands. At the moment this application is enhanced with Bluethooth Low Energy (iBeacon) technology to allow support of hyperlocal proximity cases.

The result

Raiffeisen bank financed the app which is available for free in on the App Store, Google Play and Ovi since 2010.

“Location based services is the technical innovation we have been waiting for. We offer a number of club activites such as discounted tickets, festivals and other benefits. As all the offers are location-dependend, a simple and transparent overview ist very important. – this is where location based services offer a tremendous added value”.Herbert Horak, Raiffeisen Club Austria 

“Location based services is the technical innovation we have been waiting for. We offer a number of club activites such as discounted tickets, festivals and other benefits. As all the offers are location-dependend, a simple and transparent overview ist very important. – this is where location based services offer a tremendous added value”.
Herbert Horak, Raiffeisen Club Austria