Big Thank You
Rapp Tribal New Zealand
Issue 21 | December 2011
Agency
Rapp Tribal New Zealand
Creative Team
Head of Direct: Pat Murphy; Head of Copy: Susan Young; Creative Director: Aaron Goldring; Digital Designer: Tau Matenga; Digital Developer: Jonathan Alpers
Production Team
Digital Producer: Russell Smith; Director (Telecom): Matt Douglas; Director, Play It Strange: Mike Chunn; Mac Designer: Matt van der Loos
Other Credits
Head of CRM Planning: Emma McLean; Account Director: Katja Green; Senior Direct Marketing Manager, Telecom: Sarah Whitehead
Date
July 2011
Background
How does one of New Zealand’s biggest companies say thank you to their most loyal customers – when they haven’t been in touch with them for years, and they don’t have a lot of budget?
Idea
The idea was to give every Telecom staff member a chance to say ‘thank you’ in person. A big blank canvas was unrolled at Telecom’s headquarters, and staff were invited to write their own message of thanks, starting with the CEO. Then all the different thank-you’s were turned into thousands of different envelopes and letters, which were sent to loyal Telecom customers around the country.
Each letter and email directed customers to a microsite, where they could watch a film of the staff creating their thank you note. They could then choose from a selection of Telecom products as thank you treats.
Results
Instead of buying loyalty with a free offer, an experience was created, which was rewarding in itself – with outstanding results. Within days of receiving the mailing, almost 2,500 customers went online to choose a treat.
60% opened the email (double the industry standard), 46.4% clicked through (eight times the industry standard), and a whopping two-thirds of those who clicked through from the email took up a treat. What’s more, Telecom staff actually felt proud of the company they worked for – starting a whole new conversation about loyalty:
Great idea. This [is] a fantastic way to reward die-hard ‘Telecomers’. Leonie Dougherty
Abso-freaking-lutely awesome! Sometimes customers just like to be thanked. Jethro Donald
Our Thoughts
Good ol’ fashioned flat mail made from two sheets of A4 paper is one of the toughest mediums in which to create some groundbreaking originality. So why use A4 sheets when you can use paper the size of a bedsheet, get your client’s staff to doodle thank you’s all over it and then make the envelopes out of it to create a personal touch that makes every single letter a one-of-a-kind?