2016 Gold Best use of mail

Agency OgilvyOne UK

Client what3words

Campaign summary

Letters without an address sent to postmasters

Campaign overview

Did you know that 75% of the world’s population has no reliable system of addressing?
Revolutionary addressing system What3words wanted to drive leads by starting a conversation with Postmasters in developing nations with no addressing systems in place.

Strategy

Around four billion people lack a proper system of addressing, making them invisible without a reliable way of receiving important mail.

This is a barrier to growth for developing nations - they can’t benefit from the increase in mail from e-commerce. Putting an addressing infrastructure in place costs millions of dollars and can take years.

With such a large potential market, careful use was made the available budget. Specialist consultants identified the top 10 prospects in key markets in Africa. The Chief Postmasters in these markets were
sent a letter demonstrating that What3words understood their market’s situation.

Market letters are more trusted and easily understood than overly sophisticated marketing solutions. However, the challenge was the delivery.

After all, these countries had been identified because they lack a reliable system of addressing.

Creativity

So how to get the mailings to their destinations safely with no reliable addressing system in place?

Each mailing needed to communicate clearly to Postmasters the difficulties their citizens face when trying to send mail around the country.

The creative leap was to use the ingenious methods local people in those countries use when they are sending letters: hand written directions, maps, telephone numbers and descriptions and drawings.

First researching the locations of each of the Postal Head Quarters in each of the nations, the next job was to carefully craft pictorial ‘addresses’ on the front of each envelope.

Each pictorial address was specifically designed to help the postman get the mailing safely to its destination. The added bonus was that it clearly conveyed to the Postmasters the problem of having no clear addressing system and the lengths people were having to go to when sending mail.

Results

Selling new postal systems is long, complicated and there are many stakeholders.

A realistic goal would have been to start a conversation with some of the campaign targets, to entice at least one of them to trial the system.

The results supported the creative approach on three levels; firstly, eight out of 10 targets contacted What3words to acknowledge successful receipt of their mailings.

This is proof that the idea of using descriptive and pictorial addressing on the envelopes worked in these markets.

Secondly, three of those markets began conversations with What3words. It proved the strategy of using simple, well-written letters with an understanding of their market and an eye catching outer envelope worked.

Thirdly, one of those markets signed up for a trial. This was a stretch goal and proves the creative approach drove results.

Team

Charlie Wilson (Executive Creative Director) • Emma de la Fosse (Group Chief Creative Officer) • David Doran (Illustrator) • Justin Cairns (Head of Production) • Janet Berry (Senior Producer)