Clients
MeritValu – The Provident Bank in Cincinnati. The mid 90s
What we did:
This was another version of the multi-merchant, market-wide program but with a more robust
technical rewards delivery platform that eliminated the need for paper rewards. This was the rst
instant rewards program. Over 400 merchants signed on. We created one of the rst promotional
campaigns that used purchase data to drive sales.
We created a supermarket Thanksgiving promotion that o ered all MERITVALUE cardholders the
opportunity to get a FREE Thanksgiving meal if they spent $150 in the rst 10 days of November.
$100 got the cardholder a free turkey. The chain’s business increased 50% over the previous year
and they ran out of turkeys.
What we learned:
There was instant acceptance of the program by local merchants but our assessment was that we
needed an anchor department store and supermarket chain. The largest department store chain
and supermarket wanted to participate but insisted that they would have their own branded cards.
The bank refused and the program never got enough traction to succeed.