Bimbo hopes new loyalty program boosts bread engagement

Bimbo Canada is promoting its new Feed Good Rewards on pack and at point of sale nationally to boost bread engagement.

The effort will be led by agency partner Track, formerly TrackDDB, which has been selected as Bimbo Canada’s CRM AOR following a competitive pitch process that launched earlier this year.

According to Paul Tedesco, president of Track North America, consumers want meaningful personalized experiences, and that the shop’s plan is to grow Feed Good Rewards, which was launched in June, using a connected experience approach, wherever shoppers are on their journey.

As part of taking a more “meaningful” approach, the rewards program includes a key CSR component, designed not only to empower Canadians to eat well and win prizes, but also to waste less and give back explains Tania Goecke, VP of marketing for Bimbo Canada.

She says Feed Good is unique compared to other programs, because users can view, share or rate recipe content, which is linked to chances to win a monthly sweepstakes of $250 gift cards. The social component comes from points adding up to meals: every 2,000 earned on rewards powers a donation of one meal, with a maximum of 15,000 meals per month to Food Banks Canada.

Goecke tells strategy the idea to roll out a loyalty program began with a test in 2021 about how to get into first party data.

“We met our KPIs and from there decided to roll it out and had to make a call: is this Dempster’s only, or are we going to expand?” Goecke says.

Feed Good then became more expansive, designed to accommodate all bread/baked goods in the Bimbo portfolio, then eventually snack brands like Vachon and Takis.

The company is, however, focused on core Bimbo Canada brands like Dempster’s and Villaggio at first to first drive interest in low-involvement bread categories that also have high household penetration, Goecke says. Feed Good messaging is already on pack and POS for top-selling Dempster White and Wheat SKUs at grocery banners nationally, as part of the acquisition strategy, she says.

“[Consumers] shop the category by colour of the bag a lot of the times, to find their favorite and move on,” Goecke says.

“We want to try to interact with the consumer more, and interrupt them so they pay more attention and potentially open up to a different bread segment.” That means potentially going to tortilla varieties or bagels as part of the shopping basket.

According to Goecke, the rewards have broad appeal and are designed for anyone who interacts with the bread brand.