Kroger Links to E-Labels for Education

CAROL ANGRISANI

CINCINNATI — Strong customer response has prompted Kroger Co. to extend its new Campbell's Soup Co. electronic rewards program into the 2009-2010 school year.

E-Labels for Education is an electronic version of Campbell's Labels for Education, which awards points for qualifying product purchases. Points can be redeemed for items ranging from scissors to gymnastic beams.

Accumulating points off-line requires participants to remove UPC labels from participating products and mail them in for redemption.

E-labels are much less laborious. They can be collected by Kroger shoppers who enter their loyalty card number and designated school at elabelsforeducation.com. Every time they purchase a participating item, their school automatically receives 1 point. Select products earn 5 points.

Nearly 100,000 Kroger shoppers signed up for e-labels last school year. More than one-third of those were people who never participated in the offline Labels for Education program, according to Stan Roach, chief sales and marketing officer, You Technology, the San Francisco-based technology company that powers the e-Labels program.

Nearly one-quarter (22%) of e-Labels participants don't have children at home and are usually grandparents.

“These grandparents may have wanted to participate in the traditional Labels for Education, but the hassle of collecting the wrappers and mailing them in was too great,” Roach said.