How Launceston Central Tracked $167K in Local Spend With a Digital Shopping Passport
May 26, 2026
Moving Beyond Paper Passports to Measure Local Economic Impact
Launceston Central is the promotional agency for the Launceston central business district, leading marketing, place activation, events, and advocacy to help central Launceston remain a leading destination for shopping, dining, entertainment, services, attractions, and social connection.
The team wanted to encourage more people to shop local through the Love Launnie campaign, but traditional paper-based passport campaigns made local economic impact difficult to measure. Paper passports can create community excitement, but they often leave small teams with unanswered questions: how many people participated, how much local spending the campaign influenced, which businesses saw the most activity, and whether shoppers came back more than once.
For Charlotte Wright, Advertising & Strategy Specialist at Launceston Central, the goal was not just to run another short-term shopping event. The team needed a sustained campaign that could bring residents back into the CBD, support 100 participating Love Launnie retailers, encourage repeat shopping habits, and collect clearer data without adding extra work for business owners or frontline staff.
The Love Launnie Digital Shopping Passport
Launceston Central used Driftscape to launch the Love Launnie Shopping Passport, a digital shop-local campaign designed to make participation simple for shoppers and manageable for participating retailers.
Instead of relying on paper cards, manual stamps, receipt collection at checkout, or point-of-sale integrations, shoppers entered the campaign directly through the digital passport. After making a purchase at a participating retailer, they submitted their contact details and transaction amount through the app.
To protect the integrity of the campaign, shoppers were required to keep their receipts. If selected as a winner and contacted, their receipt served as proof of purchase. This created a practical balance: participation stayed simple, while the campaign still had a receipt-based verification step for prize winners.
To encourage repeat participation, the campaign included weekly giveaways and a grand prize draw of $2,500 to spend locally.
Moving Beyond Paper Passports to Measure Local Economic Impact
Launceston Central is the promotional agency for the Launceston central business district, leading marketing, place activation, events, and advocacy to help central Launceston remain a leading destination for shopping, dining, entertainment, services, attractions, and social connection.
The team wanted to encourage more people to shop local through the Love Launnie campaign, but traditional paper-based passport campaigns made local economic impact difficult to measure. Paper passports can create community excitement, but they often leave small teams with unanswered questions: how many people participated, how much local spending the campaign influenced, which businesses saw the most activity, and whether shoppers came back more than once.
For Charlotte Wright, Advertising & Strategy Specialist at Launceston Central, the goal was not just to run another short-term shopping event. The team needed a sustained campaign that could bring residents back into the CBD, support 100 participating Love Launnie retailers, encourage repeat shopping habits, and collect clearer data without adding extra work for business owners or frontline staff.
The Love Launnie Digital Shopping Passport
Launceston Central used Driftscape to launch the Love Launnie Shopping Passport, a digital shop-local campaign designed to make participation simple for shoppers and manageable for participating retailers.
Instead of relying on paper cards, manual stamps, receipt collection at checkout, or point-of-sale integrations, shoppers entered the campaign directly through the digital passport. After making a purchase at a participating retailer, they submitted their contact details and transaction amount through the app.
To protect the integrity of the campaign, shoppers were required to keep their receipts. If selected as a winner and contacted, their receipt served as proof of purchase. This created a practical balance: participation stayed simple, while the campaign still had a receipt-based verification step for prize winners.
To encourage repeat participation, the campaign included weekly giveaways and a grand prize draw of $2,500 to spend locally.
How Driftscape Helped Transform a Traditional Campaign
Driftscape helped Launceston Central replace paper-based tracking with a digital shopping passport that shoppers could use from their own phones. The platform supported the campaign by helping shoppers find participating retailers, submit passport entries, and stay engaged throughout the campaign period.
For Launceston Central, this created a cleaner way to track participation and spending activity without asking retailers to manage new checkout steps, install technology, or manually report campaign activity.
Driftscape helped the team:
Replace paper-based tracking with digital passport entries
Reduce manual administration for the campaign team
Avoid point-of-sale integrations for participating retailers
Capture shopper-submitted spend data
Use receipt retention as proof of purchase for contacted winners
Track total entries, unique shoppers, and repeat participation
See which businesses were generating the most campaign activity
Build a stronger reporting story for merchants, partners, and stakeholders
First 21 Days: $167K in Tracked Local Spend
In the first three weeks, the Love Launnie Shopping Passport showed strong early participation and meaningful local spending activity.
$167,915 in local spending was tracked through shopper-submitted passport entries.
1,294 total passport entries were submitted in the first 21 days.
1,001 unique shoppers participated in the campaign.
$129.76 average spend per entry showed that entries were tied to meaningful purchases.
18.48% repeat shopper rate showed early evidence that shoppers were returning to participate more than once.
The campaign also showed that spending was spread across different types of local businesses, from homewares and fashion to gaming, photography, jewellery, and specialty retail.
Top-performing merchants in the first 21 days included:
Inspire - yourself & your home: 179 entries and $13,695.91 in tracked local spend
Fella Hamilton: 57 entries and $13,579.32 in tracked local spend
Scenic Isle Gaming: 116 entries and $12,587.25 in tracked local spend
Camera House: 21 entries and $6,093.33 in tracked local spend
Cotton On: 81 entries and $6,012.10 in tracked local spend
Prouds the Jewellers: 27 entries and $5,723.70 in tracked local spend
NekoMart: 83 entries and $5,563.00 in tracked local spend
For Launceston Central, these numbers helped turn a shop-local campaign into something easier to report, evaluate, and improve. Instead of relying only on anecdotal feedback or broad event estimates, the team could point to specific participation, spend, repeat shopper, and merchant-level data.
Why the Campaign Worked
The Love Launnie Shopping Passport worked because it removed friction for both shoppers and retailers.
For shoppers, participation was simple: make a purchase, submit an entry, keep the receipt as proof of purchase, and stay eligible for weekly giveaways and the grand prize draw.
For participating retailers, the campaign did not require new technology, extra checkout steps, or manual reporting. That mattered because local businesses are already busy. A shop-local campaign is more likely to succeed when the process supports retailers instead of adding another task to their day.
For Launceston Central, the digital format made campaign reporting easier. The team could see useful campaign data while the campaign was running, rather than waiting until the end to sort through paper entries or collect feedback manually.
The campaign also gave residents a reason to revisit the CBD over time. Weekly giveaways helped create repeat moments of engagement, while the $2,500 grand prize gave shoppers a larger incentive to keep participating throughout the campaign.
Turning Shop-Local Goodwill Into Measurable Action
The Love Launnie campaign offers a practical model for downtown associations, BIAs, BIDs, Chambers of Commerce, destination teams, and place-based marketing organizations that want to support local businesses while collecting better impact data.
The key lesson is simple: shop-local campaigns work best when they are easy to join, easy to manage, and easy to measure.
By shifting the entry process to shoppers, Launceston Central reduced the burden on participating retailers. By requiring shoppers to keep receipts as proof of purchase if selected as winners, the campaign kept a simple verification step in place. By tracking spend, entries, unique shoppers, repeat participation, and merchant-level activity, the team gained a clearer picture of local economic impact.
In just 21 days, the Love Launnie Shopping Passport tracked $167,915 in local spend, engaged 1,001 unique shoppers, and showed an 18.48% repeat shopper rate. For other local business associations, the takeaway is clear: a digital shopping passport can help turn community loyalty into measurable action without adding extra work for local retailers.
Turn Shop-Local Campaigns Into Measurable Economic Action
Driftscape helps local business associations create digital passports, interactive maps, contests, and visitor engagement campaigns that are easier to manage and easier to report.
Help shoppers visit more local businesses, track campaign participation, and show the impact of your work with clearer data.