2011 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

No other company had ever written that many personalised cards to such a large group of people. Subscribers felt valued, special and appreciated when they received their personalised card in the mail. In return, Batelco received over 55,000 calls from people showing their appreciation. Batelco began with an ordinary announcement, and ended up with 62,000 friends.

Creative Execution

We created seven congratulatory cards, designed to look exactly like the stereotypically clichéd store-bought cards - complete with a fictional greeting card company logo. Just as if someone from Batelco had gone out of their way to buy the greeting card from a gift shop especially for the subscriber. The challenge was to personalize 62,000 cards with real, heartfelt messages of congratulations. But we had to make it believable. To ensure that people knew that their cards had not been churned out of a copier, they had to witness the event. So we invited them to watch the signing streamed live on Batelco’s website. And over the course of one weekend, we got Batelco employees to personally fill every card with congratulatory messages, seal every envelope and write every address – all by hand.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Batelco, Bahrain’s leading telecommunications company, wanted to announce to all their broadband subscribers across five packages, that their package had been automatically upgraded. On different occasions, people collectively write personal messages on cards to express their sentiments and affection.