Printed Statements Waste More Than Just Paper

Background

BPAY View enables people to view and pay their bills online, instead of receiving printed statements. BPAY wanted to increase the take up of this service.

Idea

In this digital age, continuing to receive printed statements makes no sense. Not only is it slow and inefficient, it places a substantial and needless burden on the environment. What better way to illustrate this than to show the world tossed away in the same way millions of bills are each year? The agency sent out metal bins to key stakeholders in 35 major Australian companies, containing a screwed up paper globe, a brochure and CD. The bin was emblazoned with the legend ‘Printed statements waste more than just paper’.

Recipients were invited to take part on behalf of their organisations in the upcoming BPAY View consumer campaign aimed at migrating more of their customers toward receiving online statements. If they agreed to participate, then a statement insert was placed in their customers’ next printed bill encouraging them to use BPAY View instead. BMF also provided information that outlined the many benefits of such a programme.

Results

Of the initial 16 packs, four companies agreed to take part, generating over 5.2 million individual statement inserts (that’s around one quarter of the total Australian population). Nine companies have expressed an interest in taking part with negotiations continuing. And there are still a further 19 companies to contact. All in all, the campaign is set to smash all records in terms of BPAY’s ability to reach Australians with its BPAY View message.

Our Thoughts

A lot of teams (and a lot of clients) would have stopped at the idea of sending a ball of paper that looks like the world screwed up. What’s nice about this idea (and bravo the client who found the money) is in sending the bin it will go in, but what’s amazing is how a mailing that targeted just 35 people ended up reaching 5.2 million.