In a world where consumers are bombarded with marketing messages in every facet of their daily lives, finding ways to break through all the noise can be challenging. To be memorable, a marketing message must be loud, unexpected and funny.
Let’s think about that big annual sporting event (yeah, you know the one) where everyone watches and discusses the commercials as intently as the game itself. Humor is featured in many of those commercials for a good reason— it works. People respond to it.
With that in mind, let’s switch gears. Direct mail has made a comeback in the last few years. Why? Think about your own mailbox at home. Do you get as much mail as you used to? No. Now think about your inbox. Do you get a massive amount of email? More and more every day? Yes. This has created a unique opportunity for direct mail to reinvent itself and break through the marketing noise in the business world. But to do that, direct mail campaigns need to stand out in a big way. Enter humor.
The sales team at Intelligencer Printing partnered with Gavin to create a direct mail marketing campaign that was very memorable and just plain funny. They were looking to create a campaign that would open doors for sales opportunities with print buyers in the pharmaceutical industry. Gavin developed the marketing strategy, design and copy for the campaign.
To ensure we were capturing the voice of the customer (VOC), we wanted to create something that signified we “get them.” We had to meet them where they were, in their comfort zone. So, what did we do? We created a fictitious drug, called CollaterAll. We rolled it out through an integrated marketing campaign, in the same fashion a new drug would be rolled out in the pharmaceutical industry . . . except we intentionally infused all content with humor.
First we designed an impactful box, completely branded to our fictitious drug and personalized to each recipient to showcase Intelligencer Printing’s capabilities. We created a drug brochure, complete with a package insert detailing the possible side-effects of using CollaterAll. We personalized a mug to look like a prescription bottle and nested it inside the box. To top it off, we included a fictitious prescription (note) pad, also branded.
Of course, a campaign isn’t worth a hill of beans without a plan for follow-up. We worked with the Intelligencer Printing sales team to develop a timeline for rolling out each element of the campaign and scheduled touch-point opportunities for their representatives to contact the recipients. The campaign included a postcard, email blasts, a landing page and, of course, the box. For a second phase of the campaign, we created a smaller CollaterAll box, again including the fictitious drug brochure, a branded prescription bag, and a personalized prescription bottle filled with mints.
So, did it work? In addition to opening new doors and dramatically increasing traffic to the Intelligencer Printing website, the surprise of the campaign was its shelf life. The campaign is currently being prepared for other industries and was even featured in the Intelligencer Printing booth at several national trade shows. This campaign is evidence that well-built collateral is essential to the health of any organization’s marketing strategy.
