Hockår

Background

by marei is a small, young retail company that specializes in designer furniture. Its managers have a small showroom and particularly impressive expertise when it comes to designer seating from around the world. To clearly convey this to potential customers, both building owners and architects, it was necessary to create a marketing tool that could be used as a brochure and a mailing in one.

Idea

Rather than create and send out a standard A4 glossy brochure, the mailing comprised a number of different component parts. Pieced together after they had been read, they formed a useful and robust (designer) chair, without the need for any nuts and bolts.

Results

After just 40 days, by marei had had a 58% response to the first 100 Hockår sent out. Follow-up phone calls with potential customers led to 23 concrete enquiries for the furnishing of properties as well as to a major contract for by marei to provide the seating to a hall of cultural events.

Our Thoughts

I've always been a sucker for a mailing that turns into something else. The trick, of course, is to make it something useful and/or interesting so that it doesn't get thrown away. This neat little chair is probably still sitting in any number of recipients' offices and homes as a constant reminder of by marei's proposition.

Being a skilful piece of design in its own right, it says more about by marei's professionalism than any amount of copy could do. The medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan once observed.