Vodafone Chocolate Mailer

Background

India and the UK are the only two countries in the world where, if you want to change your mobile service operator, you have to contact your existing service provider to get a Porting Authority Code, which is then shown to the new provider, who can proceed to port your number across.

It places a lot of the work on the customer. So, many will need a good incentive to go through the process.

Vodafone wanted to make it worthwhile for high-value customers to move to their network.

Idea

500 customers of other services, who had a monthly billing over 10,000 rupees, were mailed a personalised invitation. They were mailed their own mobile phone number in hand-made chocolate pieces. Beneath each individual chocolate was a reason to move to Vodafone. 

Results

56% of recipients moved over to Vodafone and also recommended it to their friends, testimony that they found Vodafone truly sweet. 

Our Thoughts

What I have found most depressing about most Direct Mail campaigns is the astonishing lack of ambition behind them.

For many marketers, response rates of 2% are fabulous. And to blazes with the 98% of recipients who were unmoved or, worse, irritated by the mailing.

If you set your goals high then a number of things happen. Aim for response rates of over 50% and you simply have to do something interesting. But as well as spending time crafting the piece, you also have to spend money. Input and output are directly correlated. So congratulations to Vodafone India for setting meaningful targets for themselves and achieving them. My only question, why stop at 500 mailings? Why not 50,000? They would be repaid not just in terms of new customers but in terms of brand saliency too.