Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, the world’s largest soft pretzel franchise, is partnering with The Coca-Cola Company, Millennial Media, and Sparkfly Inc to pilot a mobile advertising campaign that will offer consumers a mobile deal that can be measured and tracked seamlessly through the point of sale, down to specific consumer purchases at the item level.

The mobile ad campaign will be running during the heart of back-to-school shopping season. The mobile ad creative will test different combinations of Auntie Anne’s and Coke items for purchase at 10 Atlanta-area Auntie Anne’s locations, and each ad unit will contain a unique redemption code from Sparkfly that enables the item-level tracking of individual consumer sales and the revenue impact of the promotion.

Heather Neary, Auntie Anne’s chief marketing officer says, “One of the primary benefits of the partnership is to track an offer from the onset to point of purchase. Not only can we measure how effective individual offers are, but we can analyze the performance of individual display units.

“We have never been able to measure either of these before, and it’s a solution that we can see taking us into the future,” she continues. “Being able to have a program that can reward new and loyal customers with offers that they want and will redeem is an extreme benefit to both the consumer and Auntie Anne’s.” 

Point-of-sale redemption and data tracking is powered by Sparkfly’s patented software platform and enabled through integration with major POS systems across retail locations. 

In combination with Millennial Media’s advertising analytics, for the first time, Coca-Cola and Auntie Anne’s will get a holistic view of their advertising campaign with data such as how often ads were viewed and redemption data down to item-level detail. 

Consumers who receive the ads will be able to instantly redeem their coupon at checkout and will also have the ability to save the deal for later use.

If a user chooses to save the deal, they will receive a SMS message with a link to the redemption code that can then be used at any time during the promotional period.

“In partnership with Millennial Media, we have solved the long-time digital advertising dilemma of how to track an ad’s impact on consumer purchases at the retail point of sale,” says Catherine Tabor, CEO, Sparkfly Inc.

This campaign is running exclusively on the Millennial Media platform, providing Coke and Auntie Anne’s the ability to reach consumers on more than 7,000 devices across more than 30,000 mobile apps.

“Marketers are shifting local market advertising spend into mobile and are driving real-world value in a way not possible with more traditional channels, “ says Marcus Startzel, GM, North America at Millennial Media. “Mobile provides brands new levels of immediacy and relevancy, and with advanced audience targeting, marketers can be sure they are reaching the right consumers at the right place and time.”