2014 Bronze Business to Business

How did the campaign make a difference? TLC is a rewards company that maintains that discounting harms brand equity whereas adding emotional value costs less in all senses and, done creatively, retains listings.

The campaign allowed TLC to target carefully selected senior marketers whilst increasing awareness of the brand throughout the marketing industry.

Just under 3000 people engaged with the campaign, representing a 1,363% increase in response rate against past campaigns and resulting in more than £600,000 of new business.

The positive feedback received was also a milestone in changing perceptions of TLC.

Strategy Positioning the grocery trade as the ‘enemy’ was a bold decision, made with eyes open. But the brand needed a villain to position brands as victims. Shock tactics? That was the brief.

TLC tackled a topic that is a major business concern for brands: price versus value. To achieve their new business goals, the brand identified and targeted the price-focused FMCG sector and a dream client hit list.

With the target audience deskbound and bombarded with endless B2B emails, TLC needed to disrupt away from the screen and create stand-out with a multichannel campaign.

Using print and advertising space in our The Grocer and Marketing Week, exhibition space and experiential noise at Marketing Week Live and personalised DM pieces to reinforce the EDM strategy, TLC got in front of its audience at every turn.

Creativity TLC took the guise of a charity called A.V.E (Added Value Everywhere) and began a tongue in cheek mock charity appeal to highlight the dangers of continually discounting and pricecutting your brand.

Distorting the codes of the charity sector to turn TLC’s core message into was bold but incredibly effective. As well as arresting design and unexpected, disruptive copy, the campaign lent itself to experiential executions such as an outdoor protest and a ‘charity’ style installation at Marketing Week Live.

Useful insights and serious brand challenges were highlighted through DM, EDM, targeted digital, social and print advertising, website, guerrilla marketing, stickers, flyers, press packs and live events.

Results Ultimately TLC was shown as a viable alternative to discounting in a fresh, humorous and memorable way – and ended up with hundreds of decision makers’ contacts within 105 brands.

It was a simple idea that the audience got straight away. Targeted email campaigns were sent to 3,500 contacts and achieved an exceptional open rate of 15.42% and a 1.1% unique click rate – attaining positive awareness with some key brands including Barclaycard, Diageo, HSBC and Mars. Follow-ups led to conversations with more than 60% of the audience and TLC started a promising work relationship with more than 12%.

For an incredibly targeted campaign the creative drove an exceptional 1,468 (and growing) unique visitors to the website to find out more about the campaign, TLC as an agency and digest key case studies.