Dirty Envelope
Issue 15 | June 2010
Agency
Chemistry Communications
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Pete Harle; Art Director: Jacob Lawson; Copywriter: Collette Boardman
Production Team
Creative Services: Wendy Pocock
Other Credits
Account Manager: Rachel Dutfield; Planner: Malcolm Cotton
Date
March 2010
Background
People who work in construction and manufacturing often need hard-wearing, no-nonsense mobile phones that can take all the knocks and drops and can be handled with dusty or wet hands. They have found that most mobiles just aren’t up to the job.
Orange wanted to get these small businesses to sign up to a tailored business phone plan, by showing them that the Samsung Solid Extreme B2100 was built to survive their tough working environment.
Idea
The first part of the campaign involved an envelope, which landed on the prospect’s doormat splattered with paint, dust and oil, and a muddy footprint right across the middle. A message on the front of the pack asked: “Does your business day look a bit like this?”
Inside was a letter, printed on clean white paper to contrast with the mess on the outside, which explained how this tough waterproof, dustproof, just about everything-proof phone was more than rugged enough to handle the knocks and bangs of the reader’s typical working day.
At the same time, a link to an online video was emailed to the same audience. thefeed.orange.co.uk/2010/02/22/samsung-solid-gets-the-tough-guy-treatment
The video showed the phone being dropped in puddles, thrown across the floor and dunked in a glass of water. And guess what? The phone got straight back to work.
Results
The group business mobile plan is a notoriously difficult one to sell to cold prospects through DM, as it requires a big commitment on the part of the end user.
This campaign not only beat the target but achieved results that were around three times better than previous campaigns run during the previous year for the same group.
By talking direct to this segment, the campaign helped raise awareness of Orange business mobile plans. It drove considerable traffic to the Orange online shop and had a halo effect on other plans and services that Orange offer.
Our Thoughts
This piece did not make the cut at first pass. It was only when the agency sent us the actual envelope that the team decided it should go in Issue 15. True, there have been other ideas like this. See Issue 11 and Goss Gothenburg’s idea for Homeless People, where they left the mailings out all night before posting them. But when you gt this envelope in the hand (or see it on the mat) it is so much more dramatic than the pictures here can describe. The open rates must have been well into the 90%-plus regions. We also liked the fact it was tied in with an email, and both directed the reader on to an online video, amplifying the message about the phone’s durability at each point.