The Coconut
Nexans Sweden
Issue 27 | June 2013
Agency
Mecka
Creative Team
Key Account Director Anders Kape Copywriter Lasse Kampe Art Director Oskar Pettersson Calle Osterberg Final Arts Andreas Noren Emma Tyren Web Production Magnus Tapper Production Manager Lotta Johansson
Production Team
Superstudio
Date
October 2012
Background
In late 2012, Nexans launched a new generation of one-kilowatt cables.
Until then, these cables had been hard to open and work with. Sometimes, electricians even got hurt.
The strategy was to address the 204 managers of cable wholesale companies who, between them, were the gate- keepers to a market worth two billion Swedish kronor, and drive them online to get the full specifications.
These were very rational people who would need convincing that the new cable delivered all that Nexans promised.
Idea
The core proposition was to show how easily Nexans cables opened up, a problem that had existed for decades.
The creative solution was to mail the 204 wholesalers a coconut. It was just as hard to open a coconut as it was a one-kilowatt cable. Until now.
The Nexans coconut had a zipper. Inside the target found information and cable samples and was directed to the website for more detailed information.
The idea was also a metaphor for what Nexans stood for – a company that knew what it was like for electricians, could identify with them and provide practical solutions for them.
Results
One of the objectives was that 150 of the 204 recipients should visit the website within three weeks. In the event, the campaign microsite received 260 unique visitors within just one week, 73% above goal.
Our Thoughts
If this had been a brief for a press campaign, the creative team would have struggled badly. Cables, hard
to open, dangerous, and even if they had arrived at the metaphor of an equally tough nut to crack, it would have had none of the sense of intrigue and revelation the mailer did. The aha moment as the recipient discovered the meaning of the pack and its message.
A lot of marketers think, because you are talking to electricians you don’t need to be as thoughtful, interesting and even amusing as you need to be when talking to a more general and more uninterested audience. Wrong.
And how right this is.