Zurich Opt-In
Issue 13 | December 2009
Agency
Publicis Dialog, London
Creative Team
Creative Director:David Prideaux, Creatives:Mark Buckingham, Ian Sweeney, Project Manager: Craig Hawkes, Artworker:Matthew McGrath, Brand Director:Jennifer Phillips, Account Manager:Tom Sturman
Date
May 2009
Background
25% of Zurich customers have opted out of receiving marketing communications, representing a huge missed opportunity for cross selling. The challenge was to get these people to tick the box that would allow Zurich to sell to them again.
Idea
Human instinct means that whilst people may be averse to receiving unwanted messages, this conflicts with the emotion of not wishing to miss out.
To convince the audience to opt back in, they were made to feel that they were missing out. They were sent a blank letter. No sales message, no copy, just a signature. And attached to this blank piece of paper was a reply card that told the recipient: “Actually, we’ve got lots to tell you about. But we can’t say anything until you tick this box.”
Results
An unprecedented 7% ticked the box and sent back the reply card. An impressive number, considering the industry average is 4.7% and that Zurich were talking to an audience who had already stated they didn’t want a conversation.
The success didn’t stop there. When prospects were mailed a first speculative Connect cross sell campaign, the response rate of the ‘opted back in’ cell was 3.5% versus 0.3% for the standard speculative cell. It even outstripped the renewal dated cell which responded at 2.5%. Not only that, the conversion rate was also the highest.
Our Thoughts
BT once managed to send a letter out with only the words ‘R u OK?’ on it – though there was a P.S. which explained it was all about text messaging on your home phone. Now here’s an achievement – a letter with no words at all, but which still manages to make perfect sense. Okay, the reply card requires 30 words to explain everything but that’s still not what you might call verbose. Less is more, as they say.