A Canada Post Incite Case Story: Woosh Halves What It Takes

The high prices set by Telecom, New Zealand’s national telecommunications service, were constant front-page news. Independent wireless network Woosh saw the opportunity to target disgruntled householders in its key network zones, letting them know they could be paying half as much for their phone with a package from Woosh. This David vs. Goliath objective needed to make an impact. But, on a tight budget, Woosh could only afford a letter in an envelope.

So they printed a letter in a violent green for drama and urgency. Then they tore each letter in half by hand before dropping it in 50,000 mailboxes around Auckland. Piggybacking on the negative sentiment around telecom prices, this piece hit a nerve by communicating boldly how much people would save with Woosh.

And it was amazingly persuasive. The results during the first campaign period reached new highs for Woosh, with a record number of accounts opened each day. And, when the campaign was rolled out again, there was an increase of up to 62 per cent of new Woosh customers in network zones where the mailer dropped – compared with an average increase of 9.3 per cent nationwide.

This is direct mail behaving like ambient media and shows how important it is to combine sentiment and data to get your message to those who want and need to hear it.

CLIENT: Woosh PRODUCT: Phone and Broadband Package COUNTRY: New Zealand AGENCY: Tequila, Auckland AGENCY TEAM: Creative Director – Wayne Pick, Head of Copy – Kim Pick, Copywriter – Michael Goldthorpe, Art Director – Mari Petterson.

Have you discovered Canada Post’s Incite Magazine? It’s full of great stories and examples from around the world about great marketing campaigns that also make smart use of direct mail. You can subscribe to Incite for free.