Winning Postcards
Issue 16 | September 2010
Agency
Akestam Holst
Creative Team
Creative Director: Andreas Ullenius, Martin Cedergren; Art Director: Lars Holthe; Copywriter: Hanna Bjork
Production Team
Account Executive: Goran Akestam; Account Director: Jacob Stjarne; Account Manager: Maria Ljung
Other Credits
Planners: Lars Friberg, Henrik Adenskog
Date
6th April 2010
Background
The Golden Egg is Sweden’s largest and most prestigious advertising awards show. The Swedish Post, Posten, is the principal sponsor of the Direct category and they wanted to use their sponsorship to show the creative possibilities of mail as a medium.
Idea
Most creative people enjoy being in the spotlight so the winners at The Golden Egg Awards were all photographed without them knowing the true purpose of the photos.
And this was to get the photos printed up and mailed overnight in postcard form to the winners’ parents. On the back of the postcard was a message from Posten saying “We hope you are as proud as we are impressed’.
Results
It was highly appreciated by both the winners and their parents. Many of the creatives then showed their winner’s card on their Facebook pages, thus helping to generate even more buzz in the Swedish advertising community.
Our Thoughts
How do you get creatives in agencies to take on mail in the same way they take on a brief for TV, print or digital advertising? It’s a problem that is exercising postal services around the world. If they can get better, more engaging direct mail made, it will lure newcomers to the medium. And it will help silence the critics of ‘junk’.
There’s a lovely insight here, that behind every star creative there’s a Mum and Dad who are always interested in (a) knowing what their offspring are up to and (b) prepared to be proud of them.
Each of these postcards would have led to a flurry of online conversations, offering both evidence that mail and email can work in tandem and inspiration as to how it can be achieved.