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The last place you want to go

Issue 14 | March 2010

Agency

M&C Saatchi, London

Creative Team

Creative Director: Graham Fink, Copywriter: Simon Dicketts, Art Director: Graham Fink

Production Team

Typographer: Gareth Davies

Other Credits

Senior Account Manager: Michael Wilton, Account Director: Estelle Adams, Senior Planner: Neil Godber

Date

September – December 2009

Background

Dixons had been a major presence on every high street in the UK but had sold most of their shops to concentrate on being an online e-tailer.

Online electrical goods retailers are two a penny and the task was to re-establish Dixons as one of the first sites browsers would visit when considering a purchase.

Idea

The Dixons.co.uk site is single-minded in its objective to provide consumers with the very latest technology at the keenest prices.  To do this, it uses a compelling price guarantee to match the key competition both on and offline.

Though this may have provided a strong foundation for a low price proposition, it wasn’t enough to help create memorable advertising.

The insight was that many tech-savvy male consumers like to go to the shops to research the products they are interested in but then go online to find it at the best price.

The agency simply described this behaviour in the posters and press ads, using sly, tongue-in-cheek humour to position Dixons within the customer journey as the place they should come to last.

Results

Traffic to the website rose by 32% in London and by 14% outside the capital.

The campaign generated much coverage in the media with The Daily Telegraph asking ‘Are these the most honest adverts ever?’

Our Thoughts

Graham Fink sent me a gleeful email the day after this campaign broke saying ‘It’s like the old days!’ The newspapers were full of the story. Harrods, John Lewis and Selfridges had all taken offence at these Dixons posters and were threatening legal action. It’s difficult to know quite what sort of a case they could have brought because the ads do nothing more than describe a behaviour we all recognize.

In the wrong hands, the campaign could easily have been over-written and over-art-directed, but it is its very restraint that has made it noticeable. Or notorious, depending on your point of view.

Not that Dixons are saying, but my bet is that this led to significant sales. Just as important, Dixons the brand reappeared on the public radar at a time when it was beginning to fade from memory.

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