Rebuild the Habit of Purchasing your Brand - Great Example by PRET

Following my last article I got asked by people for examples of how to build a habit so I thought I would share this by Pret. The routine of buying a daily coffee in Pret has been broken by the crisis so they are allowing people to buy a card for £20 that allows them to redeem the card over time for 20 drinks. Now this is a great discount so people will buy it- but the act of redeeming the tokens over time will re-establish the habit of going to Pret for a coffee. This is a brilliant execution and so much better than a short term one off price promotion as after you have paid the £20 upfront, all future coffees will in actual fact feel like they are free as the pain of paying the original £20 is just a distant memory. Your habit of going to Pret is now rewarded with a free coffee and they improve their cash flow by you forward paying for your coffee. You can only redeem one token a day so this deal is specifically focused on habit formation not cheap coffee.

The more you look at the deal the better this applies shopper psychology and behavioural science as they also allow you to rip the tokens in half and give 10 to a friend. This is really clever as it allows you to enrol someone else into a Pret coffee habit for them. There is a good chance then that you will go for a coffee with this friend - re-enforcing the habit as it is now supported by someone else and both of you will instigate Pret visits based on different cues or triggers. There is also a good chance this gift to a friend will encourage reciprocity and the friend will feel obliged to buy the next £20 token before the deal finishes at the end of June encouraging both of your Pret coffee habits to be further entrenched.

When I told my wife about the coffee card she was shocked at what a great price it was - so not only is this a superb mechanism for re-establishing current users back into their habit - it is also a fantastic trial mechanism for all those habitual coffee drinkers whose established pattern of buying in a different store has just been broken for a considerable period of time. As some people will need to be careful with their money going forward this is a fantastic mechanism for attracting other coffee shops' regular customers by establishing an elongated-possibly 20 visits new habit of getting their coffee - in Pret. What's even better is that many of those people who go to Pret for their free morning coffee will probably pick up something for breakfast or lunch while they are there and on the way to work, building profitable sales and establishing a bigger basket and multi purchase habit.

They also apply scarcity theory - there are only 55,000 cards available so if you don’t buy one quick you will miss out.

Great work by Pret - perhaps they have been reading my posts?

If you have not read my last post yet find it here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tonyrdurham_covid-19-crisis-or-opportunity-5-actions-activity-6671334866120003584-BU7s

If you want help, coaching or training on how to make the right choices and design action like this one by Pret based on shopper psychology, behavioural science and proven claims development, get in touch via Linkedin or my website. https://ardurham59.wixsite.com/tonydurhamlimited

Please feel free to share this article with friends and colleagues where you think it might help.

If all you want is the Pret deal find it here: https://www.pret.co.uk/en-gb/Pret-Coffee-voucher

Tony Durham

Tony Durham Consulting Limited