THE 1997 DMA/ROYAL MAIL DIRECT MARKETING AWARDS: BEST USE OF DM MEDIA - CONSUMER PRESS

WINNER

Client: Abbey Life

Agency: TBWA Payne Stracey

Copywriter: Darren Shea

Art director: Marcel Cowan

SECOND

Client: Shelter

Agency: WWAV Rapp Collins

Copywriter: Barry Evans

Art director: Brendan McGrath

THIRD

Client: W Jordan (Cereals)

Agency: Osprey Park

Copywriter: Mike Reynolds

Art director: Seth Crewe

WINNER

A traditional tactic in the critical illness insurance market, which is

concerned with life-threatening conditions such as cancer and heart

disease, has been to use fear to drive response. Often this has led to

complaints.

The agency challenged this approach, building empathy with the target

audience through a combination of emotion and factual information.

Photographs and headlines combined to show that when someone suffers

serious illness, the lives of others are dramatically affected as

well.

Instead of concentrating exclusively on the financial pages, the ads

were extended into women’s pages and health features.

To date, the campaign is 20% ahead of target on response volumes, with a

50% cut in the cost per lead. An unexpected benefit is that charities

which support the aims of the campaign have approached Abbey Life to

discuss the possibility of joint ventures.

’A hard category to judge, with a lot of good work,’ said the

judges.

’Much careful thought went in to the strategy and the execution of the

winning campaign. It pulled on different emotional strings.’

SECOND

With so much money in the economy from building society windfalls,

Shelter decided to see whether some could be syphoned in its direction.

Media were chosen which had performed well in the previous winter

recruitment campaign, and also which would have readers benefiting from

windfalls.

This was unknown territory, and results were hard to predict. The

charity hoped for a 1:1 return on investment and achieved 1.36:1, with

the average donation 12 times higher than in previous campaigns.

THIRD

Jordan had a maximum of 100,000 samples of four cereals to give away,

and a pounds 20,000 advertising budget. To avoid the danger of being

swamped, the agency ’drip fed’ ads into The Guardian Weekend magazine,

and up-market Sunday titles, targeting adults over 35, with a bias to

women. The key proposition was: ’Try four of these products for free and

discover that real food tastes better’. The campaign attracted 92,000

responses.

This article was first published on Marketing