How teenagers fell for Twilight, X-Factor and direct marketing
There are an array of topics occupying the minds of teenagers this year end. The X-Factor, relationships, Twilight and Gossip Girl to name but four but not, I wager, lifeboat crews and lifeguards.
All the more reason then to give the RLNI and its direct marketing agency, Proximity their second big pat on the back of the week.
The charity’s interactive campaign clinched the Direct Marketing Association’s 2009 “Grand Prix” award for, as the DMA puts it, transforming the RLNI “from one of the least known charities amongst youth into one of the most talked-about online”.
Some achievement and from such humble, if well targeted, beginnings. The RNLI sent just 12 DM packs out initially but they led to more than one million viewings of the “vloggers’” musings on the charity, which, it is claimed, reached 11% of 15 – 20-year olds.
As awards chair Lord Putman, puts it, the campaign represents an “important step-change for direct marketing in the digital age”.
Not sure I would go quite as far as the Oscar winning producer, but his observation, and the RNLI campaign gives some justification to what seems like a shared mantra among agencies: “we are truly an integrated agency”.
The success of the RNLI campaign also highlights how effective using the elder statesman of direct marketing channels together with its precocious sibling can and does lead to a greater return for marketers.
As Marketing Week’s Direct Mail Attitudes research recently found, 22% of marketers are now using both physical and interactive techniques together to glean best results.
And if you would allow me a new year/next decade prediction, prepare to see that dual approach increase in the future.
Have a happy holiday and a fantastic new year.
