Challenge: Validating thousands of retail receipts through WhatsApp while stopping fraud attempts.
Solution: Veryfi Lens and OCR pipeline built for Colombian receipt formats.
Result: 1,500+ participants engaged, with real-time validation and secure prize distribution.
1. Executive Summary
In May 2025, HIT Bebidas partnered with Veryfi to launch “Back To School,” a month-long loyalty campaign that transformed how Colombian consumers engaged with the brand. Running from May 1st to May 31st, the campaign invited customers to purchase HIT juice multipacks (6, 12, or 24 units), submit receipt photos via WhatsApp, and accumulate points toward prizes. The innovative dual-reward structure offered both instant redemption opportunities for smaller prizes throughout the campaign and grand prizes for top point leaders at the end.
Behind this simple consumer experience lay a sophisticated technology. Veryfi delivered an end-to-end solution that processed receipts in real-time, validated purchases against campaign rules, and managed a comprehensive fraud prevention system. With 1555 participants, 326 successful claims and 722 surveys completed, the campaign demonstrated that receipt-based loyalty programs could scale effectively in Latin America’s mobile-first market.
This wasn’t just about collecting receipts, it was about proving that traditional loyalty mechanics could be digitized, secured, and delivered through the messaging platforms consumers already use daily.
2. Company Background
HIT Bebidas is a leading Colombian ready-to-drink juice brand operating under Postobón, Colombia’s largest beverage company with over $5.3 trillion pesos in revenue and 35+ brands. Founded in 1956 and specializing in authentic Colombian fruit flavors like lulo, mango, and mora, HIT recently underwent a comprehensive brand renewal in October 2024 to modernize its market approach and connect with diverse audiences.
As part of Postobón’s dominant market position in Colombian beverages, HIT benefits from extensive distribution networks and advanced manufacturing capabilities. However, in Colombia’s competitive beverage market, brands must go beyond product quality to build lasting consumer relationships. Traditional loyalty programs often relied on physical cards or codes, creating friction that limited participation and made fraud prevention difficult to scale.
HIT recognized that their consumers, predominantly mobile-first users, needed a loyalty experience that met them where they were, on WhatsApp. The challenge was creating a system that could handle receipt validation at scale while maintaining the security and accuracy their brand reputation demanded.
3. Campaign Challenge
The “Back To School” campaign presented several technical and operational challenges that traditional loyalty program vendors couldn’t address. First, the receipt-based mechanic required sophisticated OCR capabilities that could extract key information, dates, totals, product details – from images captured in varying lighting conditions and angles. Unlike standardized product codes, receipts come in dozens of different formats from retailers across Colombia.
The second major challenge was fraud prevention. Receipt-based campaigns are particularly vulnerable to exploitation: users might submit the same receipt multiple times, share receipts between accounts, or attempt to submit receipts from outside the campaign period. With valuable prizes at stake, including grand prizes for top point earners, HIT needed ironclad protection against these tactics.
Scale presented the third challenge. The campaign needed to handle thousands of submissions daily while providing instant feedback to participants. Users expected immediate confirmation of their points, not a delayed processing system that would kill engagement momentum.
Finally, there was the technical reality of WhatsApp’s limitations. While WhatsApp was the ideal channel for reaching Colombian consumers, its image compression significantly reduced photo quality – a critical problem for OCR accuracy. Standard WhatsApp camera functionality wasn’t sufficient for the precision receipt processing required.
The campaign also needed to balance two different reward mechanics: instant redemption for smaller prizes during the campaign and a leaderboard system for grand prizes at the end. This required real-time points tracking, flexible redemption logic, and comprehensive reporting capabilities.
4. Veryfi’s End-to-End Solution
Veryfi’s approach went far beyond providing OCR technology, we engineered the entire campaign infrastructure from consumer interaction to prize distribution. At the frontend, we built a custom WhatsApp bot that guided users through registration, receipt submission, and point tracking. The bot was conversational enough to feel natural while being robust enough to handle thousands of concurrent users without downtime.
For receipt processing, we developed a specialized OCR pipeline optimized for Colombian retail formats. Our engine could extract dates, totals, and product line items from receipts across major retail chains, automatically validating that purchases fell within the campaign period and included qualifying HIT products. The system processed submissions in real-time, giving users instant feedback on their points balance.
To solve WhatsApp’s image quality limitations, we implemented Veryfi Lens through iOS App Clips and Android Instant Apps. This replaced WhatsApp’s compressed camera with our high-resolution capture system, ensuring OCR accuracy while maintaining the seamless user experience. Users could access the enhanced camera without downloading a full app, keeping the process frictionless.
The points management system tracked individual user balances, leaderboard positions, and redemption history in real-time. Users could check their standing, redeem points for instant rewards, or continue accumulating toward the grand prize competition – all through natural language interactions with the WhatsApp bot.
5. Anti-Fraud Technology Features
Receipt-based campaigns face unique fraud vectors that required sophisticated countermeasures. We implemented multiple validation layers that operated transparently to users while providing comprehensive protection for HIT. Every receipt submission was checked for duplicate detection, preventing the same receipt from being submitted multiple times across any user accounts.
Date validation ensured all receipts fell within the May 1-31 campaign period, while product matching confirmed that submissions actually contained qualifying HIT juice purchases in the required pack sizes (6, 12, or 24 units). Our system also validated receipt authenticity by checking for proper formatting, required fields like totals and dates, and image quality standards.
To prevent abuse of the daily submission limits (20 receipts per user per day), we implemented device fingerprinting through Veryfi Lens. This allowed us to detect when multiple WhatsApp accounts were being operated from the same device, a common tactic for circumventing submission limits. While we couldn’t fully prevent multiple account creation in WhatsApp, we could identify suspicious patterns and flag them for review.
Location and timestamp metadata helped identify coordinated fraud attempts, while behavioral analysis flagged accounts with suspicious submission patterns. All fraud detection operated in real-time, protecting campaign integrity without creating delays for legitimate participants.
6. User Experience & Participation Flow
Despite the complex technology underneath, the consumer experience remained remarkably simple. Participants started by purchasing qualifying HIT products (multipacks of 6, 12, or 24 units) from any Colombian retailer. They then initiated contact with the campaign through a WhatsApp QR code or direct message, completing a quick registration with basic details.
The core interaction involved taking a photo of their receipt using Veryfi Lens, accessible through a simple link sent by the bot. The enhanced camera capture ensured high-quality images for accurate processing. Within seconds of submission, users received confirmation of their points earned and current balance.
Throughout the campaign, participants could check their leaderboard position, redeem points for instant rewards, or continue accumulating toward the grand prize competition. The WhatsApp interface made all these functions feel like natural conversations rather than complex application interactions.
The entire flow, from purchase to points confirmation, took less than two minutes. This immediacy was crucial for maintaining engagement in Colombia’s fast-paced mobile environment where users expect instant gratification from digital interactions.
7. Prize Structure & Distribution
The dual reward system kept participants engaged throughout the month long campaign. At the top tier, grand prizes awaited the highest point earners at campaign end, creating aspirational goals that drove sustained participation. These major rewards generated social media buzz and word-of-mouth marketing that expanded the campaign’s reach beyond direct participants.
Simultaneously, instant redemption opportunities allowed users to convert points into smaller rewards throughout the campaign. This immediate gratification component prevented the campaign from feeling like a long wait for uncertain rewards. Users could redeem points for digital vouchers, small product samples, or brand merchandise, maintaining engagement momentum even for participants unlikely to reach leaderboard positions.
The points structure rewarded larger pack sizes proportionally, encouraging higher value purchases while remaining accessible to all consumer segments. This tiered approach maximized both participation breadth and revenue impact for HIT.
8. Real-Time Analytics & Management
HIT’s marketing team gained unprecedented visibility into campaign performance through Veryfi’s management dashboard. Real-time analytics showed submission volumes, geographic distribution of participants, and trending product preferences across different Colombian regions. This data informed mid-campaign optimizations and provided insights for future marketing strategies.
The fraud monitoring interface surfaced suspicious patterns immediately, allowing the team to investigate potential issues before they could impact legitimate participants. Leaderboard management tools let HIT track top performers and prepare for prize distribution well before campaign end.
Customer service integration meant that participant questions or disputes could be resolved quickly by accessing individual submission histories, points calculations, and validation decisions. This transparency built trust and reduced support overhead compared to traditional loyalty programs where participants had limited visibility into their status.
The combination of real-time oversight and comprehensive historical data gave HIT marketing intelligence that extended far beyond the campaign period, insights into purchasing patterns, retailer performance, and consumer engagement that will inform future initiatives.
9. Key Benefits Achieved
The “Back To School” campaign delivered measurable success across multiple dimensions. With 1,555 participants generating 326 successful claims and 7,220 consumer surveys completed, the initiative demonstrated strong engagement from HIT’s target demographic. The high survey completion rate indicated that participants were genuinely engaged rather than simply gaming the system for rewards.
Operationally, the automated receipt processing eliminated the manual verification burden that typically makes loyalty campaigns expensive to operate. Fraud prevention measures maintained campaign integrity while allowing legitimate participants to engage freely. The WhatsApp-first approach met consumers in their preferred communication channel, reducing adoption barriers that often limit loyalty program participation.
Most significantly, the campaign generated rich consumer data that HIT can leverage for future marketing efforts. Purchase pattern analysis, geographic engagement insights, and behavioral data created a foundation for more targeted future campaigns. The success proved that receipt-based loyalty programs could work effectively in Colombia’s mobile-first market when supported by appropriate technology infrastructure.
10. Technology Partnership Value
The success of HIT’s “Back To School” campaign demonstrated the power of comprehensive technology partnerships in modern consumer engagement. By working with Veryfi as a single vendor for bot development, OCR processing, fraud prevention, and analytics, HIT avoided the complexity and risk of coordinating multiple service providers.
This integration mattered not just for operational efficiency but for campaign integrity. Every component, from receipt capture to points distribution, was optimized to work together, ensuring that security measures didn’t compromise user experience and that performance optimization benefited the entire system.
The WhatsApp-native approach met Colombian consumers exactly where they were, while advanced OCR and fraud prevention maintained the accuracy and security that HIT’s brand reputation required. For HIT, the campaign proved that digital loyalty programs could deliver both engagement and insights at scale.
For Veryfi, the partnership showcased our ability to adapt sophisticated technology solutions to the unique requirements of Latin American markets, where mobile-first consumers demand both simplicity and security in their brand interactions.
Ready to transform your loyalty program with intelligent receipt processing and WhatsApp-native engagement? Contact Veryfi today to learn how we can power your next consumer campaign.
