Agency self-Promotion

Most other banks position Personal Overdrafts as a safety net, something you fall back on when you haven’t managed your money properly.

Opinion formers in parliament and in the media were both mailed and given rubbers which doubled as USB sticks so that when it came to applying for funding or seeking donations they would be aware of the work Alzheimer’s New Zealand does within the community.

The invitation was an affectionate pastiche of one of the greatest icons of London, the Monopoly board.

Tinnitus is a constant ringing or buzzing noise within the inner ear. The mailing was a demonstration of what it is like to be afflicted with this constant barrage of sound.

The approach was to tell the most vocal members of MyWaitrose about the new weekly recipes and encourage them to try the first one for themselves – then share it with the rest of the MyWaitrose community online.

This mailing shattered any perception there had been of Royal Mail only being good for lighter items.

The first idea was to target a very specific group of people. Football players in the French Premier League. The second was to link two very modern, very iconic objects with each other, the SLS AMG and the Apple iPad.

To encourage as many of the approx. 500 important journalists and media decision-makers as possible to make a donation, they developed an unusual mailing concept. Instead of writing reams of letters asking for donations, they reduced the copy to a provocative demand: deeds, not words! And underlined the message with an attention-grabbing, formal idea.

To get school Principals’ attention about “New School”, they were addressed in a deliberately “Old School” way. They were mailed a quill and ink in an old cardboard box and, to get them fully engaged, they were invited to write back to Microsoft for more information using the quill provided.

The editor, Patrick Collister, was giving one of the keynote talks at the Cannes Advertising Festival. His talk was titled “Stuffed, Stamped and Licked” and was designed to show that mail is not the ugly sister of communications media but advertising’s Cinderella.

With broadband technology there are no half measures – your connection is either bang up to date or it’s yesterday’s news. To highlight this, the mailing looked like a telegram from yesteryear (and a visit to the Telstra Museum helped the designer achieve authenticity).

When young German males become adult, they get a call-up letter informing them they must serve in the German army.

To show what it’s like being burgled, the mailing list was sent a letter which had been ‘burgled’ itself. The window of the envelope was broken up and inside there was nothing left, as if the mailing had been cleaned out like a flat or a house.

Most creative people enjoy being in the spotlight so the winners at The Golden Egg Awards were all photographed without them knowing the true purpose of the photos.

A postcard was used to engage customers with a simple, yet powerful demonstration of what it feels like to rent movies from a video store in winter. Using thermal ink, the message was revealed by the near-zero temperatures of their freezers and fridges.

The challenge for the premium whisky brands which Brandhouse stocks and sells (Bells, Johnnie Walker etc) was recession. Consumers were drinking cheaper brands. Both the TV show and the mailer set out to show that there are no chap ways to make a decent scotch.

The first part of the campaign involved an envelope, which landed on the prospect’s doormat splattered with paint, dust and oil, and a muddy footprint right across the middle. A message on the front of the pack asked: “Does your business day look a bit like this?”

Asking the question, ‘Have we gone too far?’, DM packs featuring a spoof tube of Marmite Toothpaste were sent out across the UK. The recipient was told that though this could have been a step too far, Marmite had however launched the first savoury cereal bar.

‘Head & Heart’ was mailed out to 200 potential customers. It was a book with Gothic illustrations that took the recipients on a fantastic journey. Each of the 12 chapters has a heading of seemingly disparate pairs of terms, like Price & Performance, Mass & Class or Meeting & Relationship.

The agency chose to dramatise a human truth: new cars are great, but they do take a bit of getting used to. The ‘New Car Owner’s Manual: Your Guide To Frequently Encountered Problems’ brought this insight to life. After all, they’re nice problems to have.

Given that the recipients were growing themselves, literally, and were about to grow a family, the concept of ‘growth’ was central to the piece. The visual language was of growth imagery and the copy used metaphors inspired by trees, plants and flowers.

ING sent out the invitation in the form of a Malaysian one ringgit note, only this particular note had a little girl’s face on it. The note was folded in such a way that the recipient was encouraged to interact with it to make the little girl smile. The message was, one ringgit is all it takes to bring back her smile, so please join the Spread the Smile movement. Instructions were given on the note, along with details about the screening.

It is common for creatives to browse through photo libraries hoping that an unexpected image might lead to a surprising new idea. It was this insight into the creative mind which drove the direction of the creative concept: Random Inspiration.

The team wanted to show how a single idea, well crafted and executed, can break through seemingly impenetrable walls to reach its target and achieve success. The story of the Trojan horse was the perfect example of this and the agency’s creative leap was to dramatise the metaphor with a mailing of a scale model of the equine original.

The idea was to send them each a storyboard for one of the main scenes in the movie. Except that the board was tweaked to show the recipient of the piece as the hero, as if they had been cast as the leading actor/actress.

The agency developed a direct mail piece that serves a dual purpose. By pulling the letter out of the envelope, the reader holds a plea for the amnesty of a person who has been sentenced to death.

They may not know the specifics, but given the hype surrounding virtualisation, CIOs are well aware of its benefits. The hard part is selling it to their Chief Financial Officer, and convincing him to finance the set-up costs – particularly in this economic climate.

Trying to save money by using cheap, less effective IT infrastructure can come back to haunt you in the long-term. This DM pack presented this argument clearly and, well, sharply.

The first target for this personal approach was identified as Dana Cooper, who had just been appointed Head of Marketing at Momentum, a major insurance company in South Africa.

Custom-made software was installed which recognized whenever an envelope was about to be printed. It identified the address in MS Word and then connected through to Google Maps.