2017 Silver Best design or art direction

OgilvyOne Worldwide

Client: What3Words

Addressing the Problem

Campaign overview

Did you know that 75% of the population has no reliable system of addressing?

What3Words wanted to start ground-breaking conversations about putting these addressing infrastructures into place, without it costing millions.

Strategy

Around four billion people are invisible with no reliable way of receiving important mail. A barrier to growth, What3words aimed to target this lack of proper addressing system across developing nations.
Putting an addressing infrastructure in place normally costs millions and can takes years to accomplish. OgilvyOne Worldwide’s solution had to introduce a system quickly and simply.

Each market represented a huge untapped potential for postal services. For example, only 20% of people and businesses in Nigeria are currently able to receive post, despite the country having the world’s seventh largest population.

The strategy was to use special consultants to help identify the top prospects in key markets, and then use simple letters to start a dialogue, that could possibly lead to a trial of the proposed system.

Creativity

The answer for creativity lay in the methods used by the local people in those countries when they are sending letters; hand written directions, maps, descriptions and drawings.

OgilvyOne Worldwide set about crafting pictorial addresses on envelopes; each one completely unique and mailed, with no reliable addressing system in place, to a Postal Headquarter in each nation. Once there, the Chief Postmaster would have to get the mail safely to its intended destination from the illustrations on the mail.

The intention of these envelopes was to clearly communicate to Postmasters the difficulties their citizens faced when trying to send mail around the country, and the lengths people were having to go to when sending mail.

Results

10 out of the 15 areas targeted contacted What3words to let them know they had successfully received the mailings. Six of those markets then began conversations, and one of those markets, NiPost signed a deal to use and roll out What3words in Nigeria.

From a single letter, the opportunity for their services to be used by over 120 million new customers by 2020 had been unlocked. Providing a mailing system to those who previously had no way to receive or send mail reliably.

What3words plan to expand the country’s ecommerce ecosystem, currently worth 12 billion dollars, and play a critical role in building a strong national economy.

They have also received a letter of intent from the postal service in Cameroon.

Team

Charlie Wilson (Chief Creative Officer) OgilvyOne Worldwide - Taylor Bates (Illustrator) OgilvyOne Worldwide - Jess Stokes (Illustrator) OgilvyOne Worldwide - Naomi Seah (Illustrator) OgilvyOne Worldwide - Ana Quina (Art Director) OgilvyOne Worldwide - Brooke Clark (Copywriter) OgilvyOne Worldwide - Janet Berry (Senior Producer) OgilvyOne Worldwide