2011 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

As the UAE’s population mushroomed over the last decade, the need for home security systems and solutions has become greater. Home & Beyond, a new player in the market, wanted to communicate directly with the major household goods and appliances retailers in the UAE and get them to stock Home & Beyond’s range of products in their stores. Our strategy was to send out cost-effective solicitation mailers to the procurement managers of retail stores and get them to request a product demo.

Creative Execution

Big retail chains are very particular about the brands they stock and associate with. We felt the Tough Envelope demonstrated how serious Home & Beyond are about their products and solutions. If the mailer was tough to get into, their home security systems would be even tougher. This gave them the credibility they needed to get a foot in the door.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Procurement Managers get hundreds of solicitation packs every day. To break through we needed something simple, but clever; that would illustrate the quality of Home & Beyond’s products and get them invited for a demo. We created a mailer from very thin Micron sheets. This made it extremely difficult to get into, because while it looked exactly like a paper envelope, it was almost impossible to tear. In most cases, people had to cut the envelope to get to the message inside, and by then, we had made our point about the effectiveness of Home & Beyond’s security solutions.

Results

Mailers were sent out to all the leading household goods retailers in the UAE, and 24% of them responded with a request for a demonstration. Today two of the largest retailers in the UAE stock Home & Beyond’s range of home security products. They are - Ace Hardware and Sharaf DG.