Gas4Life Contest Yields Increased Customer Engagement with Casino Wheel Game

GREENSBORO, N.C., Oct. 18, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Terrible Herbst just completed its most successful annual Gas4Life promotion by leveraging Gilbarco Veeder-Root’s™ Impulse countertop merchandising solution to increase participation and engagement, while significantly boosting store merchandise revenues.

Gas4Life

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3f6864ba-93fc-4fd6-a987-d7adda377836

Terrible Herbst ran Gas4Life, a 90-day game-of-chance promotion designed to engage customers. If customers purchased featured store items, they would receive special game codes on their receipts which they could use in the on-line Gas4Lilfe drawing site to win major prizes like cars, beer for a year, or gas for a lifetime. They also had a chance to win prizes instantly at the checkout by spinning a video-based prize wheel that would rotate and stop on prizes like food, beverages or candy.

Central to the promotion’s success was Gilbarco Veeder-Root’s Impulse platform which was programmed to host the instant-win portion of the promotion on the interactive “Spin2Win” video wheel. Rather than receive a scratch-off card as in earlier versions of Gas4Life, customers were given a chance to spin the interactive wheel, using their fingertips to start the rotation. If they were lucky, the wheel would stop on a prize.

Impulse is a basket-based, suggestive selling solution that uses sophisticated, behind-the-scenes technology to display relevant and colorful offers, games (like Gas4Life), and surveys to the customer before, during, and after check out. It integrates seamlessly with Gilbarco's Passport® Point-of-Sale system and the store’s price book to power an automated upselling feature which generates displays at the checkout counter to increase basket size and overall sales. In this case, Terrible Herbst programmed Impulse to feature an interactive casino-like game.

Terrible Herbst is an innovator when it comes to leveraging technology and promotion at the c-store level. A key strategy in its marketing plan is to supplement fuel sales with store merchandise purchases — which means getting customers to enter the store.

“We used to use scratch-off cards to provide the instant-win portion of our annual Gas4Life promotion,” said Mark Walters, Terrible Herbst Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “There’s a lot more manual work involved with scratch cards, given the record keeping and distribution. Plus, there’s the printing of the cards. Impulse saved us over $40,000 just in scratch cards which we could put back into the promotion. The colorful graphics and lure of Impulse’ Spin2Win interactivity simply made it easier and more fun for customers to participate.”

“This year’s Gas4Life promotion is our most successful promotion to date,” said Walters. “Fun and innovative ideas to engage and entertain customers are key to driving in-store sales and retaining loyalty. But the Impulse technology really brought the Spin2Win portion of the promotion concept to life. People like instant gratification and Impulse helped us leverage that desire. The incremental sale of in-store items was significant.”

“Leading c-store retailers like Terrible Herbst are setting new trends in c-store merchandising by leveraging the latest technology,” said Mark Williams, Vice President of Marketing, Gilbarco. “They are using Impulse to increase sales and grow business, but also to help drive customer loyalty.”

With more than 250 lanes of Impulse installed across its network, Terrible Herbst continues to use Impulse as a business strategy to increase sales and to learn how to effectively engage customers.

Founded in 1937, Terrible Herbst is a privately-held gas station company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company operates gas stations in Nevada, California and Arizona. It sells gas, groceries, and other products, as well as car wash and oil change services. It also sells gift cards and car wash plans online.

To learn more about Gilbarco Veeder-Root’s Impulse merchandising platform or more about other upselling solutions, visit:  http://www.gilbarco.com/us/learning-center/learn-about-upselling. 

About Gilbarco Veeder-Root

Gilbarco Veeder-Root is the worldwide technology leader for retail and commercial fueling operations offering the broadest range of integrated solutions from the forecourt to the convenience store and head office. For over 150 years, Gilbarco has earned the trust of its customers by providing long-term partnership, uncompromising support and proven reliability. Major product lines include: fuel dispensers, pump media, point-of-sale systems, payment systems, tank gauges, software development and integration, fleet management systems, and nozzles.

For further information, contact:

Patricia Stancati, Marketing Communications Program Manager
Gilbarco Veeder-Root
Tel: (336) 547-5121
e-mail: patricia.stancati@gilbarco.com