LIVE FROM STRASBOURG: FEDMA ANNOUNCES BEST OF EUROPE WINNERS
The big winners in the Best of Europe Awards at the Federation of European Direct Marketing’s annual forum in Strasbourg, France, which ended yesterday, included several Scandinavian campaigns.
The winner with the highest score was for the Norwegian operation of Swedish company IFS Norge. It won the gold in the business-to-business services category. In a tight labor market and not wanting to pay recruiters’ fees, the software maker needed to hire 15 staff members. Its competition was the other 175 technology positions open in the area The agency, DMB&B Clarion, created a multimedia campaign called “Headhunter” that included direct mail, space ads and public relations.
Because IFS wanted its own workforce to help recruit, the Friday night before the launch, the staff across Europe was invited to a “Cann-i-ball” where they were given “do it yourself” headhunter kits that included a cannibal doll, feathers, face paint, headhunter forms and other headhunter tools. The tagline was “Getting you on the team would be a feather in our cap.”
A similar kit (with a reply envelope) was sent as a direct mail piece to 1,200 prospects in the cities of Oslo and Stavanger, with selections based on the jobs they were holding.
Public relations played an important role. The first day, the agency and the client employed a theater group dressed as cannibals to hand out leaflets at four commuter-train stations, which garnered major press coverage, including TV. They felt the PR got people talking about the campaign at their places of work, building awareness. (They estimated the publicity to be worth about $71,500.)
The campaign brought in 128 applicants (35 from direct mail) of whom 50 were qualified. The results: IFS Norge hired 20 new employees at a cost of $3,918 dollars. The company estimates that it saved a total of $182,000 by not using professional recruiters. “I don’t think recruitment agencies like this campaign,” Klara Opdahl of DMB&B said, in her talk about the campaign.
ISO Supermarkets, in Denmark, won a special award in the Internet and New Media category for Best E-Commerce and Innovation campaign. ISO is considered to be the most advanced supermarket in the world for interactive shopping. Customers can not only order home delivery (or pick up) from the market’s Web site (launched a year ago) but it has introduced hand-held scanners for in-store shoppers to tally up their own purchases (avoiding the check-out line). It has also distributed scanner pens for ordering at home, which work by waving the pen across the bar codes on items in the refrigerator and then downloading the information into a home computer. Shopping is also done by phone and fax. ISO has started to do direct mail.
It won the award for the incredible loyalty it has garnered — 77.8%, despite the fact that many people are cynical about the prospects for Internet grocery shopping.
Denmark-based Lego won the gold in the multinational category with its campaign to build awareness throughout Europe among the parents of the 3.5 million new babies born each year. The campaign included an educational booklet explained the phases of children’s play. The campaign included a Web site for parents. It was decentralized, and operations in some countries decided not to use a database that was developed for marketing. Those that did, generated 30% more in sales and cross-sales than those that didn’t, according to a presentation by Steen Tromholt, of Danish agency Ahead, which also did the ISO Web site. Lego’s campaign is now three years old.
There were seven golds in all. In addition to IFS Norge and Lego, Lotus Development UK Ltd. won for Internet and New Media, Austria gas company OMV for Retail, Guinness for Consumer Products and Bakay De Bruyckere for business to business products (along with a special award for best low-budget campaign). Cable & Wireless won in Consumer Services for a campaign that achieved a 72% increase in sales on a budget in which 30% less was spent compared to the previous year.
