Challenge: Over 18 months Royal Mail MarketReach created an extensive body of research which proved the value of mail, both as a medium overall and as a tool for marketing and advertising professionals. But that message had to be communicated to the right people in a way that was disruptive enough to make them reconsider mail.

Publicis Chemistry, a creative agency and part of Publicis Group Worldwide, and Royal Mail MarketReach, began working together two years ago. Mike Welsh, CEO of Publicis Chemistry, says, “The specific problem the Royal Mail gave us was the decline in mail and in particular business mail. The question was, how to reverse that decline. 

”With the public’s attention focused on digital, Royal Mail needed to find a way to grab people’s attentions and show them what they had found out about the way people interact with mail and, specifically, how that could impact on advertisers’ ROI, but do so without hectoring them. The method of delivery was crucial.

Jonathan Harman, managing director of Royal Mail MarketReach, says, “What we needed to do was engage our audience in a charming way, make them want to use mail, rather than telling them off for not using more mail. We just thought that the tone of the message was really important. That was the essential thought that led to the campaign.

”For a traditional brand like Royal Mail it was important to demonstrate relevance in a modern and digital world.

Strategy: The campaign was predominantly targeted toward media agencies, planners and buyers who control advertising spend but are unlikely to plan a campaign with direct mail. Non-users who were mail-curious Return postwere also a big audience; mainly brands with marketing directors who would acknowledge that, with mail volumes going down, the letterbox could be a good place to stand-out. Existing audiences, including internal audiences such as employees, trade bodies, printers and mailing houses, were also targeted in the sense that the campaign would give them information to be proud of, thus building brand engagement.

Digital channels were the primary methods of communication. Short films were housed at mailmen.co.uk, along with the Royal Mail MarketReach research. Welsh says, “The campaign, although it doesn’t feel like it, is largely a digital content strategy campaign designed to drive people to mailmen.co.uk, which becomes the repository for all of our content, both now and in the future.

”Harman says, “Digital platforms were very important. We wanted this to be a hardworking cost-effective campaign and we know that to do that you need to use multiple channels.

”The campaign enlisted respected figures from the marketing and advertising worlds to help get its message across. The influential industry leaders were, Robert Senior, worldwide CEO at Saatchi & Saatchi, Karen Blackett OBE, CEO at MediaCom, Nik Roope, founder of Poke, Elspeth Lynn, executive creative director at M&C Saatchi and David Robinson, sales and marketing director for The Sun. Welsh says, “We tried to choose people who were representative of the kind of audiences that we were after, and who had a profile that was high enough and who were respected enough for people to stop and listen.”

“We had representatives from digital, advertising, media and from the client-side. We tried to make the selection as broad and representative of the audiences that we were after as possible,” he adds.

The intention was to find people who would surprise the audience as they wouldn’t necessarily be expected to have positive things to say about mail.

Harman says, “We just loved the campaign at first sight. It was different to anything that we’ve done before and I think the humour was very important. It was a light-hearted take on what we were trying to say.

”Photographs of the industry representatives made their personalities the focus of the images and accompanying quotes kept the tone light, but the message clear. One of the campaign’s endorsers, Blackett, says, “After 20 years planning TV, I’ve discovered a new channel.” Another, Roope, says, “On your 100th birthday, you’d be disappointed if the queen only sent you an email.”

Results: The campaign launched toward the end of January, since then, mailmen.co.uk has had over 12,000 visits and the Royal Mail has set up several hundred meetings with clients and agencies.

Welsh says, “If we‘re to succeed it requires a fundamental reappraisal of two things: the medium of mail per se, and of Royal Mail the brand. As the market leader we’re getting people to reappraise the medium generically; because if they do that, we’ll get the lion share as market leader, but also to make people fundamentally re-appraise the Royal Mail. That classic record scratch moment where everything you believe to be true is challenged in an instant.

”Royal Mail MarketReach and Publicis Chemistry succeeded in delivering findings from the research programme, the Private Life of Mail, to a targeted audience via a range of marketing channels. The use of digital both served the campaign’s objectives and helped to bring mail into the digital age by demonstrating that the two mediums, old and new, can complement each other and are not mutually exclusive. Whether the downward trajectory of mail will be stemmed is yet to be seen, but this campaign has thrown a light on the oft forgotten medium.

Welsh says, “Mail has fallen out of fashion but the digital revolution has created a new and vital role for the medium. 18 months of research have proved that consumers engage and value mail more than ever – and this has given us a fantastic story to provoke a reappraisal.”