College Basketball Championship Tournament Case Study

DGMN identified the source of incremental sales as an increase in transactions and units per transaction among the test group compared to the control group. In addition, the multiple tactics and diverse audiences included in the campaign propelled the initiative’s overall success.

Hershey and DGMN partnered to create a highly personalized digital marketing campaign from February 13, 2023 to March 12, 2023. The intent of the campaign was to support Reese’s during the men’s college basketball championship tournament key merchandising window. This equated to an opportunity for Hershey to increase visibility and help drive customer awareness by using Mr. Cup, Reese’s University mascot, to attract university and chocolate buyers during a popular sports timeframe held each March.

The specialized media plan comprised targeting audiences using DGMN’s 1P data across the digital ecosystem through offsite, onsite and video ad units. In addition, the audience targeting strategy took a multi-faceted approach, which included current buyers of Reese’s products, allowing the campaign to not only focus on existing customers but also extend efforts to convert adjacent category shoppers into new Reese’s shoppers. DGMN used its audience capabilities to target cookie and cake mix, party supply and salty snack buyers. As a result of the campaign nearly 33% of the purchases were made by new shoppers who chose Reese’s products from the SKUs featured in the creative. DGMN leveraged closed-loop measurement capabilities, providing the incremental return on ad spend (iROAS) as a success metric.

Leveraging its audience, DG and Reese’s met customers along their natural path to purchase. Reese’s employed in-stream video during this high-streaming timeframe of college basketball in combination with the campaign’s audience strategy. As a result, the tactic generated the highest iROAS.

DGMN proved it could deliver the most relevant and effective ads to the targeted customers during their shopper journey. The Reese’s campaign was a remarkable success and demonstrated that DGMN could reach and target the perfect mix of customers willing to convert and shop the brand at Dollar General. The report also highlighted the specific audiences that were most engaged during the campaign, developing a recommendation to further optimize future campaigns for Hershey.

DGMN is leading the way in the retail media and digital advertising space with multiple vendor partners, creating meaningful and lasting connections between brands and DG customers to drive win-win outcomes. Additionally, by offering iROAS within final reporting, DGMN provides an accurate measure of campaign effectiveness and resulting sales among DG customers who would likely have not purchased the products if they would not have seen the media.

By creating customized media plans based on vendors’ objectives, curating specialized audiences, implementing diversified tactics, and measuring its own success based on the success of vendors’ investments, DGMN is innovative, transformative and economical.