Make a sound decision
Issue 11 | July 2009
Agency
Rapp Canada
Creative Team
Creative team: Italo Siciliano, Sheri Ballantyne, Shelley Sutherland
Production Team
Production Manager: Jennifer McConville, Dimensional products: David Burtch
Other Credits
Account team: Susan Powell, Susan McGregor
Date
November 21st - December 19th 2008
Background
The economic downturn had an immediate effect on the shipping business. A major competitor to FedEx began reducing its operations in Canada.
Idea
FedEx saw this as an opportunity to win business by targeting its rival’s customers and highlighting their fears that the standards of reliability they had come to expect would decline. They mailed a set of earphones to the dispatch managers asking them if they were looking for guarantees of reliability in these uncertain times.
They were promised the iPod to go with the earphones if they arranged a meeting.
Results
74 prospects who used the competitor were mailed. So far there has been a 70% response.
Our Thoughts
The secret of emerging from recession in good shape is not by outspending your competitors but by out-thinking them. As in this pack. The creative work is not in itself very exciting but the strategy is bang on the money. The insight was to recognize that while dispatch managers might understand why their shipping company was reducing its level of service, they would still be troubled by it.
I think this is a courageous piece of work. Perhaps not creatively innovative but at a time when its rivals were not spending anything, FedEx invested in marketing. May it reward them.