ALL GOOD DESIGNS START ON A BLANK PIECE OF PAPER

The HP Designjet 130 Printer is a series of specialist large format color printers specifi cally designed for the advertising, design and communication industries.

Facing stiff competition from the likes of Epson and Canon, our challenge was to engage with the decision makers and infl uencers – the creative directors, art directors and project managers – in creative industries across the Asia Pacific region. Objective-wise, Arc Worldwide was tasked with generating a quantifi ed number of enquiries, leads and purchases of the new HP Designjet series of printers as well as driving

registrations to HP’s relationship marketing programme.

So, we asked ourselves, how do we engage with the creative industry?

To showcase the printer’s personalisation capabilities, HP worked with Phunk Studio to provide two sets of designer skins to be given away free with every purchase of the HP Designjet 130 Printer. Arc Worldwide and HP then went one step further and – through an innovative and highly tactile direct mail piece – challenged decision makers and leading lights within the creative industry to design a skin of their own. The winning designers would not only win a trip to Barcelona, but also see their designs go into future production.

We decided to use the more personal and tactile channel of direct mail rather than the usual online banners or emails for two reasons. Firstly, it was felt that a tactile piece of communication was a better creative stimulus for the design community. And secondly, because direct mail was a more visible communication channel, it was thought that it could better pique the interest of design teams outside of the initial mailing list, thereby increasing the potential for response. Reservations remained around the higher cost per contact of direct mail, but these were allayed through innovative sourcing (materials were sourced cost effectively from across Asia Pacific) and through a highly selective targeting strategy (that is permission-orientated, named decision makers within the design and advertising community)

The creative concept was orientated around the insight that all designs start from a blank piece of paper. With that in mind, we provided a set of colorful HP branded crayons and a ‘skin’ template on which customers could draft their ideas, prior to uploading their fi nished artwork. The mail pack also served to drive interested prospects to a microsite where further details of the competition could be found, as well as a registration page for the loyalty programme.

It seems creative people couldn’t resist the challenge. Of the 3,000 packs we mailed, just over 18% of individuals submitted skin designs in a JPEG and finished artwork format – an extraordinary response rate given the high level of involvement. Product enquiries and database population targets were also met.

Nick Handel
General Manager
Arc Worldwide