Sunglass Hut Gift Cards Case Study

Sunglass Hut approached Stoner Bunting in 2003 to build promotional partnerships as a way of connecting with its target segments and generating trial for stores in the US and Canada.

Research

SBA worked with Sunglass Hut to identify key customer segments, such as young professionals with high disposable income; outdoor sports-minded people; geographic skews; propensity for travel/vacation; etc. SBA recognized that Sunglass Hut doesn’t offer coupon discounts, given it sells high fashion brands such as Tiffany, D&G, and Prada, in addition to leading performance brands such as Oakley and Ray-Ban.

Strategize

SBA convinced Sunglass Hut to build a business-to-business marketing program around its gift card, as we could target buyers who structured rewards and incentive programs for audiences among whom SGH wanted to generate trials.

Create

These trials include travel rewards, sales force incentives (i.e. “the future looks so bright, you have to wear [SGH] shades”), Canadian rewards programs, corporate performance rewards, partnerships with great brands such as Coca-Cola and Hewlett-Packard and other programs including attending trade shows and developing a specific business-to-business gift card sales website.

Measure

The gift card was far more profitable than a coupon, as the markdowns are much lower. Consumers who redeemed their gift card were not only new to Sunglass Hut, they also spent far more than the gift card’s face value. In addition, Sunglass Hut gained substantial free media impressions against its core audiences in just about every medium available. Impressions in 2008 reached over 200 million. Finally, sales of Sunglass Hut gift cards in the business-to-business market have increased steadily every year since 2003, and have far surpassed Sunglass Hut in-store gift card sales.