2013 Bronze Best use of Door Drops

Client Charlie Bigham's

How did the campaign make a difference? This campaign allowed Charlie Bigham's to understand its key metrics for a relatively low investment, enabling rollout to households within the catchment areas of 250 Waitrose stores.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? Charlie Bigham's was founded in 1996 with the aim of creating really delicious, top quality dishes made with the love and attention you get from cooking yourself. Unlike some competitors with access to multimillion-pound advertising campaigns, Bigham's needed a medium that was discreet and targeted to create greater awareness of a premium product. Door drop allowed these factors to be employed at a low entry cost. The trial Waitrose stores were chosen to provide the most representative results (stores had posted average sales for Bigham's over recent weeks). The stores selected were isolated from others so redemption would most likely happen there, to be measured against control stores. Distribution areas were carefully determined via competitor locations, store size, market share, number of parking spaces, road network and transactional data to determine postcode sectors where the top 50% of spend would come from. Within this area, Acorn overlaid Waitrose shoppers to pick the sectors most likely to contain the right demographic target, mainly aimed at couples. Through previous couponing, Bigham's had isolated high-value coupons as the perfect driver.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? With the brand's market penetration at 3%, quickly communicating its key attributes was essential. The Fish Pie die-cut leaflet was designed to recreate the in-store experience, while the larger A4 piece looked to disrupt through its size. Both designs highlighted the dine-in for two experience, through the brand's famous 'twosomes' couple. The cartoon was complemented with high-end food photography to showcase the quality of the dishes. The headline message 'Posh Ready Meals' was chosen to drive a direct response. The £3 discount was an essential part of the communication as it breaks down one of the main barriers to purchase and was highlighted bluntly with a bright red promotional sticker graphic, echoing those found in store. Bringing further engagement to the Fish Pie design was the flap, which acted secondarily as the coupon, allowing quick and easy removal.

Results There was a clear difference in performance between the different creatives, especially prevalent in distribution via Royal Mail, showing that the Fish Pie die-cut creative was extremely impactful despite the smaller size. The consumer response reflected the fact that they recognised that the saving was a significant amount off a quality product.