Imagine the DM pack opportunity of a lifetime. A piece of mail
that you haven’t just been expecting, you’ve actually been looking forward to.
A package that rather than just binning without a second look, you pick up,
tear open and pore over every last piece of literature inside.
Over a million people across the UK have received such a
package in the last 4 weeks, so what’s inside? Well there’s your information
guide, your free zone 1 to 9 tube pass, your sacred Olympic tickets and of
course, some sponsors inserts.
Imagine that – as part of your £60m+ sponsorship fee, your
brand can begin to benefit from the very first personal moments of Olympic
fever becoming reality for millions of people across the country.
Inside my envelope that arrived last week, I received two
pieces of communication from sponsors. An interesting looking set of key fobs
from BP and a rather drab flyer from Lloyds TSB.
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| Lloyds TSB and BP Olympic mail inserts |
My drab flyer turned out to be a Union Jack sticker or a ‘bib’
as Lloyds call it. Take a pic of myself with said bib, upload to their Facebookpage (having first ‘liked’ it), and I could be attending the Team GB closing party.
As for BP – visit their site, or scan their QR code to get
there quicker (just), and use the code on the fob to offset the carbon from my
journey to the Olympic Park as part of their ‘target neutral’ campaign.
Not only that, once activated if I take my fob along to the park I can get a
picture of myself in front of the stadium free of charge.
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| BP home page |
Both have their merits, there was a time when uploading this,
that and the other online was a sure fire way of turning everybody off – it was
simply too much hassle. These days, with smartphone technology and a simple Facebook
app, those barriers no longer exist. However I think this idea still falls
short on two other counts. Just how willing is a consumer to ‘like’ your brand?
My guess is not very, when you consider the industry Lloyds TSB operates in – a
brief look at their Facebook page provided a mixed bag of ‘come on GB’ posts alongside
‘You ripped us off’/’excessive charges’ posts. But even more important than
that, by offering a ‘star’ prize, most recipients are less likely to feel they
have a chance of winning at all, and that just doesn’t feel very special, or very
Olympic.
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| Lloyds competition app on Facebook |
Contrast that with BP, a highly relevant environmental helping
hand that everyone benefits from and can feel good about. Not only that, there’s
a nice tangible benefit on your special day at the park as well – ensuring that
the BP area will be awash with people rather than ignored in favour of more
exciting experiences offered by the likes of Coca Cola.
The numbers who have taken part so far seem to reflect this –
BP is currently just shy of 200,000 sign ups to what is a slightly clunky
process though nicely personalised.
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| Unfortunately for BP, i'm racking up quite a bit of carbon from Guernsey |
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| There i am, in the light green along with nearly 200,000 others |
Lloyds on the other hand has amassed less than 100 uploads, spending
just a few minutes on the Lloyds page you get the general feeling that so
much (worthwhile) effort and attention has gone into their torch relay support, that this
golden opportunity to build (or resurrect) the brand in the hands of millions
of ticket holders has been somewhat overlooked in comparison to BP.
