Textual Harassment

Background

As a key player in the compact digital camera market, Sony was keen to maintain its strong foothold with the release of the T7, its ultra-slim digital camera. Proximity BBDO’s challenge was to encourage buyers of department stores such as FNAC, Carrefour etc. to stock the product, by presenting it to them in a fun, unconventional manner.

Idea

Rather than sending the usual technical overview of the product’s selling points, Proximity BBDO Paris decided to approach the stores from the perspective of their consumers. Never usually receiving letters from their customers, the store buyers suddenly found themselves very much in demand, with a barrage of letters from individuals begging them to stock the T7 for one reason or another. One letter, from a professor of Philosophy in the process of organising a competition for his students on the subject of ‘Flat Existence in the 21st century’, even invites the distributor to be on the panel of judges, given that he is soon to be releasing the flattest digital camera on the market.
After several days of such mail, the reveal announces the end of this textual harassment with the launch of the T7 - ‘something even your most difficult clients can agree on’. On a plain black background the inside of the final mailing showed a real size mock up of the Cybershot containing full product specifications.

Results

Qualitative post-testing conducted by Sony with its sales teams and distributors showed a 78% approval rate.

Target Audience

Department stores’ buyers (FNAC, Carrefour, Auchan, etc.)

Size

The letters were each printed in runs of 1,000 with every envelope hand written.

Our Thoughts

Every now and then someone in direct marketing finds a completely new way of using the humble letter. So hats off to Proximity BBDO Paris, who mailed the managers of electrical stores a whole bunch of letters, each purporting to come from their customers. Our favourite was the man who sent a picture of his wife. ‘She will be coming in to buy my birthday present. Make sure it is the Sony T7, won’t you?’. The following day he wrote again. ‘You won’t believe this but she went to the hairdresser’s so here’s a new picture…’.