2011 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

The product? Four new security solutions from Microsoft that worked together to protect businesses from all kinds of outside threats such as malware, viruses and phishing. The target? IT decision-makers and business owners of mid-sized companies. They were existing Microsoft customers but new to these products. The budget? Very limited, as this was the first post-recession communication about security that was going out. The challenge/objective? Get the target audience’s attention and convince them to start investing in business security once again.

Creative Execution

The DM with only one thing in the envelope – a red acetate sheet, was bound to arouse curiosity. It had a lot of impact for a flat mailer. Moreover, we made the recipients feel like they were privy to a highly secure message. Access to the message on the website was only given to the 1000 recipients of the mailer. This reinforced what Microsoft’s security products really stood for – a sound and reliable solution offering ultimate security to a company.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Our client wanted us to draw people’s attention to these products – so we created a simple flat mailer with just one thing inside – an A4 red acetate sheet. It led them to www.itsinyourhands.com and asked them to hold the sheet up against their computer screen. The webpage had a message that looked just like a jumble of letters to the naked eye, but was now clearly readable through the red acetate. What other way to deliver a message about security than the most secure website our audience had ever encountered?

Results

Out of 1000 mailers sent, there were 348 website registrations asking for more information, a response rate of over 34%, quite good for products that require significant investment on the part of our audience. Over 15% of those business heads who responded actually implemented these high-cost security products in their company. This was the highest performing DM in terms of ROI for Microsoft Middle East & Africa in the financial year of 2010.