How we rescued a failing notice effort
Signal was retained to design and implement the Supplemental Notice Plan in the Remington Arms Class Action Litigation (Pollard v. Remington Arms Company, No. 4:13-CV-00086-ODS), a product liability class action alleging that over seven million Remington firearms were defective and posed a serious safety risk.
In preliminarily approving a proposed settlement that gave class members an opportunity to have the defect repaired for free, the court authorized a traditional notice campaign (run by a different firm) consisting of direct mail, social media advertising, a press release, and publication notice in consumer magazines.
After the initial notice campaign “resulted in an appalling claims rate,” the Honorable Judge Ortrie D. Smith of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Missouri denied final approval of the settlement and ordered the parties to propose a Supplemental Notice Plan.
That’s when Signal stepped into the picture.
In Signal’s role as supplemental notice provider, we designed a program that employed data analytics to define and identify the makeup of the consumers in the class, created ads targeted to those consumers, and tested the ads among three cohorts encompassing over 150,000 potential class members. This data-backed optimization strategy immediately led to better results. Following pre-program media testing and court approval of the program, the full-scale effort ran between September 19, 2016 and October 23, 2016. During this 35-day period, class members submitted an additional 8,021 claims—a more than 100% increase in claims over the initial program.
In the following months, total filed claims exceeded 22,000—a massive improvement over the initial notice period prior to the parties’ first attempt to win preliminary approval.
In just 35 days, Signal brought in more than 8,000 claims—a more thaN 100% increase compared to the initial program.
In finally approving the settlement after the initial results of the Supplemental Notice Plan became apparent, Judge Smith emphasized the efficacy of the social media campaign Signal designed and implemented.
Order and Opinion Granting Parties’ Joint Motion for Final Settlement Approval, Pollard v. Remington Arms Company (Case No. 4:13-CV-00086, United States District Court, Western District of Missouri)
Claims Over Time:The Signal Impact
Use the yellow slider bar to view how we affected the trajectory of claims.
