
Smaller and Smarter Cards
Issue 14 | March 2010
Agency
Memac Ogilvy Dubai
Creative Team
Creative Director: Guy Sinclair, Copywriter: James Bisset, Art Director: Leonardo Borges
Production Team
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Other Credits
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Date
October 2009
Background
Even Dubai has not been able to escape the ravages of recession. But agencies are constantly telling their clients that every problem is an opportunity, so how could Memac Ogilvy Dubai talk to potential and existing clients in a way that recognized the difficult times but which positioned the agency has smart and innovative – exactly the qualities those clients needed in their own communications?
Idea
The proposition was that smaller budgets still needed creative solutions and the creative team interpreted this quite literally, producing undersized business cards to offer prospects. Not only were the cards downsized for recession themselves, they directed traffic to ogilvyrecession.com, a website which offered smart strategies for dealing with the downturn.
Results
Anecdotal evidence was that clients and potential clients found the idea funny, charming and smart. They generated a lot of coverage in the trade press. And in 2009 Memac Ogilvy was invited to pitch more times than in its entire history.
Their own communications was proof that a big creative idea does not need to break the bank.
Our Thoughts
The business card is the single most underused, under-valued business tool of all (followed closely by the company website). Typically, the business card is numbingly dull, designed simply to feed the vanity of the owner of the name printed on it and communicate his/her status. Yet it is the first real point of contact between the brand and a customer. Here is an agency turning the card into a talking piece, not a bit of personal puffery but a conversation starter about how to cut through the clutter when your budgets have been pared to the bone. How inspiring to see an agency trying to be positive at a time when many others were just running for cover.