Scandinavians Impress at Best of Europe
THE BIG WINNERS in the Best of Europe Awards at the Federation of European Direct Marketing’s annual forum in Strasbourg, France 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 work force 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, recruitment forms and other headhunter tools. The tag line 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.
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 each. The company estimates that it saved $182,000 by not using professional recruiters.
ISO Supermarkets, in Denmark, won a special award in the Internet and new media category for the “best e-commerce and innovation” campaign. ISO is considered to be the most advanced supermarket in the world for interactive shopping. Customers can choose home delivery or pickup from the market’s Web site. ISO also has introduced handheld scanners so in-store shoppers can tally up their purchases and avoid the checkout line. And it’s 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.
It won the award for the loyalty it’s garnered-77.8%-even though many are cynical about the prospects for Internet grocery shopping.
Denmark-based Lego won the gold in the multinational category with its 3-year-old 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 explaining the phases of children’s play, and 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 the Danish agency Ahead, which also designed ISO’s Web site.
