Saving A Legend

Paddlepop Lick-A-Prize has become an iconic part of the Australian summer.

 

With over 25,000 prizes, the sheer number of sticks being posted had become an annual hazard for Australia Post, regularly breaking their sorting machines. Manual verification of winning sticks had become also become too time-consuming and costly, leading Unilever to decide that, after 25 years, the iconic Australian Lick-A-Prize was to end.

 

Deepend created a business case to make online the hub of the campaign. Our technical consultants proposal involved the creation of a bespoke prize fulfilment backend system, especially tailored for the ‘match and win’ promotion. The custom built fulfilment system would contain full logistic tracking, automated communication with prize winners and a competition licence.  

The custom-built prize fulfilment system is built upon a WCF API framework and architected in such a way that all requests and responses to the server are independent of the front end implementation used. This allows the backend fulfilment system to be scalable and reused year on year whilst allowing the flexibility to change the campaign creative and functionality.

 

The core of the system is a bespoke ‘Stick Manager’ that allows kids to enter their stick codes online to match and win. It allows kids to track and manage their progress and features automated customer notification when winning sticks are matched.  Admin users have full access to live analysis and reporting on stick code usage and prize tracking in real time.

 

A ‘Logistic Management Tracker’ handles all communication with the winners and allows automated tracking of the prize fulfilment cycle from matching of online stick codes, receipt of winning sticks to prize shipping and confirmation.

 

The system also contains a ‘Random Draw Engine’ for all unclaimed prizes. The ‘Random Draw Engine’ is an independently evaluated, fully licensed competition engine usable in all states across Australia and New Zealand.  

Since taking Lick-A-Prize online, we are now fully able to track the number of sticks being used in the campaign. It has made it easier to track prize delivery and allow us to forecast the required stock levels for each prize.

 

We have had over 240,000 stick codes entered in 2009/10 which we increased to over 440,000 in both 2010/11 and 2011/12 campaigns. While those engagement levels are amazing, we have now positioned Australia as the leaders of the region and we are in talks to implement our Lick-A-Prize platform across the entire Asian territory.