In an admittedly non-projectable examination of one household mailbox, “research” shows that, with five pieces of direct mail a day, the average homeowner receives more than 1,500 items of, for the most part, unrequested mail a year.

With so many letters and catalogs destined for the recycling bin, woe to the direct mail that does not immediately capture the reader’s attention. At Hodgson/Meyers, we’ve found that sometimes the best way to put the wow in your DM is to put the meow in your DM.

Enter the Fat Cat.

Illustrating the problem: Here kitty kitty

With service in 16 states in the southeast, Windstream Communications provides phone and Internet packages to business and residential markets. On the consumer side, Windstream often found itself up against more established, yet more expensive cable providers. To help portray those companies as being more costly, we represented them collectively as, you guessed it, the Fat Cat.

A casting call was put out for filled-out felines to…actually PhotoShop magic was responsible for creating the centerpiece character. Gold eyes gleaming and pleasantly plump, the animal quickly caught the fancy of H/M employees, earning such endearments as Phat C, Heavy C and Puff Catty. Not only did Fat Cat stand out as illustrated, he perfectly illustrated how cable companies profit from charging their customers higher prices.

Windstream vs. Cable TV: A tail of five kitties
Originally scheduled to star in a single direct mailing, the Fat Cat so resonated with Windstream—and its customers—that the client requested a series of five pieces to showcase the savings Windstream offered over its competition.

With Fat Cat soaking in a tub of money, one mailer featured the headline: Are you getting soaked by those Fat Cats at your cable company? Another featured the Cat sporting a diamond-encrusted gold dollar sign collar (think of it as feline bling) in front of a private jet with the headline, Is your cable company getting fat off you?

Fat results
Windstream notes that the first Fat Cat mailing pulled 55% more responses than their average pieces. Which shows that Puff Catty was the purr-fect DM solution.

Depending upon the source, it’s been reported that consumers receive on average anywhere from 250 to 3,000 marketing impressions in a single day. Even taking a low figure of 100 impressions per day adds up to 36,500 a year!

So, if you’re an advertiser, how do you stand out? In the case of Hodgson/Meyers client CSG Systems. Inc. – a customer interaction management solution company – the answer was to come out fighting. Or at least to wear boxing gloves.

How to stand out in the direct mail crowd

In touching more than half of all U.S. households, CSG helps companies such as Comcast, DISH and Time Warner with billing and customer interaction solutions. When the time came to introduce a new product offering, CSG wanted to reach approximately 100 key decision makers in the cable and satellite TV industry.

With such a narrow, targeted audience, a direct mail approach seemed the most appropriate vehicle. However, these influential executives are also the same targets of most every other technology company as well. Thus, the challenge became to create marketing materials that would not immediately be placed in the round file, under W for wastebasket.

As the marketing agency for CSG, we needed to think big and think outside the box. In this case, thinking big meant size. And thinking outside the box had to do with thinking about what went inside the box.

Which brings us back to boxing gloves.

Adapt the mail strategy to the marketing strategy

Cable and satellite marketing managers face the never-ending problem of customer churn, people who leave one provider for another. CSG has a way to help providers eliminate churn with a better customer management solution. We recommended sending life-size professional boxing gloves along with product information to the target audience, allowing CSG to figuratively and literally give marketing executives the tools to effectively fight churn.

The sheer size of the direct mail piece (7.5” x 10.5” x 12.5”) received immediate attention. Inside a handsome box, copy and layout framed a personalized message as if announcing a heavyweight championship bout.

Box copy and Everlast boxing gloves were customized with each individual recipient’s name. These decision makers were encouraged to “K.O. churn with CSG customer intelligence solutions.” In so doing, they’d be able to build strong customer relationships, retain subscribers more effectively and enhance the value of each customer interaction.

Big package. Big Idea. In short, a real knockout!

(Customized boxes for the CSG mailer were provided by MasterCraft.)

Red Roars!

Here’s recent work from Hodgson/Meyers for WatchGuard Technologies. This campaign was designed to give WatchGuard positioning presence and marketing personality in the crowded network security industry comprised of many competitors with “me-too” propositions. WatchGuard is known for its distinctive red hardware.

We developed the campaign positioning platform expressed here.

Get red. Get secured.

Then we created the red animal ad campaign that WatchGuard is using in print, interactive, and trade show environments. The campaign is also running as backlit display ads in major airports around the world, such as the one below in the United terminal at San Francisco International Airport (thanks to Jason Frummet, our Senior Account Director for snapping this photo with his iPhone for us).

Here’s what our client, Margaret Liddiard, Director of Marketing Communications for WatchGuard Technologies, says,

“This campaign is the most memorable one I’ve worked on in many years. We were searching for a way to make WatchGuard really stand out in a noisy, crowded B2B tech market, and this campaign is helping us do that with the catchy tag phrase and arresting images. And it has been enthusiastically adopted throughout the globe by our field marketing teams and partners. WatchGuard is on the move in the market place, and our Get red. Get Secured. campaign is contributing to our growing brand awareness.”

Gary Meyers
President

It’s 10:30 pm. Your brain is cooked. The first round of ad comps are due tomorrow and your computer screen keeps displaying The Idea you’ve been working on feverishly all day. Unfortunately, The Idea stinks. Oh sure, the concept sounded really good when when everyone was brainstorming. You could visualize it all coming together with powerful visual assets and a clever headline. And you knew, you just knew people would swoon at the unveiling. But it didn’t come together. Looks like the swooning’s been postponed. And now it’s —

11:15 pm. You try a different photo. Try some Photoshop filter and some technique you saw in a video podcast recently. Surely that will pull this idea back from the abyss. It doesn’t. It goes over the edge and you watch helplessly as it spirals down to its death. In slow motion. Screaming “SAVE ME PLEASE!” But there is no saving of this idea.

12:45 am. You make a strong pot of coffee and splash cold water on your face. It helps, but only for a moment. It’s then, that your eyes glaze over and you have a weak moment. It starts as just a tiny thought that you immediately dismiss. But you think about it some more, and start rationalizing it. And then common sense kicks back in, and you feel dirty. Not because the clothes you’re wearing have been on for more than 18 hours and 27 minutes. You feel dirty, and cheap, because you’re rationalizing using a — cliché. Yes, a worn out cop-out cash-it-in surrender to the circumstances cliché. And your mind continues to wrestle with the thought. You think you could dress it up so it doesn’t look like a cliché. Get a really cool photo from Getty Images (there is a little photo budget in this job, isn’t there?). Get some dramatic lighting, maybe a little grunge background with some cool shadow stuff going on. Place and kern the type tastefully and expertly so that it just sings visually. People might just might swoon after all!

1 am. But the battle rages on within you. As tired as you are, a tiny vestige of rational thought struggles to its feet and croaks to be heard. You try to block out that little voice, but you hear it anyway. It says, “No amount of window dressing will ever change the fact that this “concept” is still just a photo of two guys shaking hands.”

___________________________

A little dramatic, perhaps, but consider the landscape. Take a look at some of the ads floating around, specifically in the B2B space. One would think it obvious to not be this trite, but alas, that’s not the case.

Many years back we made a list and posted it in our conference room. It’s a list of all the VERBOTEN things for ad and marketing imagery. We will NOT, under any circumstances, use ANY of these things in our ads or marketing material for our clients (unless of course they insist and their budget is . . . just kidding). Are there exceptions? Sure, but they’re rare.

So, don’t be tempted to use these whether you have an in-house marketing department or work with an agency. There are actually many more than these, but these are some of the biggest offenders.

The 7 deadly things that should never be in an ad.

1. Shaking hands

2. Globe

3. Gambling things (specifically dice, playing cards, roulette wheel, slot machine)

4. Mountain climbing

5. Dart boards

6. Crystal balls

7. You pick. What do YOU think should be number 7? Let us know in the comments.

Tim Hodgson
Principal/Creative Director

We get asked all the time, “What’s with your logo?”

Our logo mascot is the Pileated woodpecker, the largest woodpecker in North America.

These are visually striking creatures, with zebra-striped head and neck, long bill, and distinctive red crest.

They’re noisy; their call is a wild laugh, and their hammering and drumming are audible at long distances.

Woodpeckers are powerful; the holes they make can cause dead trees to split in two.

All characteristics of good marketing, don’t you think? By the way, our woodpecker is named Spike, and he’s federally protected, so you can’t shoot him.

Gary Meyers
President

I just came back from a seminar in Chicago put on by Robb High, an agency consultant with a focus on new business.

His take on agency trends based on interviews and interactions with senior client-side marketing professionals.

Clients want true marketing integration, but often feel that agencies are too territorial to work with other agencies when additional expertise or skill sets are required. Clients also feel that internal agency specialists and teams are too siloed. EG: the Web folks don’t talk to the media folks. You agree? Or not?

Clients want branded content that can be expressed and re-expressed through a variety of channels––online, PR, advertising, promotions. Content is king right now.

Clients want measurable ROI. No shocker there.

And mostly, clients want “renaissance” marketing advisors, those who are Internet-savvy and multi-channel disciplined.

What do you think clients want most from agencies? Whether you represent agency-side or client side, we’d love to hear your candid assessment.

Gary Meyers
President

Whether you think Lance Armstrong is an inspiring, courageous, altruistic, world champion or an arrogant, self-serving, doping, movie-star cavorting, megalomaniac… or all the above, LIVESTRONG, his cancer-fighting organization does, hands-down, some of, if not THE best marketing in the world.

Everything this organization does is on the cutting edge of online and social marketing.  They bring together corporations, artists, athletes, musicians, doctors, nurses, patients, and Joe Public in a dazzling array of social and conventional partnerships and viral techniques. And creatively superb.

I’ve never seen the Web used better. Go to Livestrong.org and Livestrong.com.

Gary Meyers
President

Welcome!

We’re launching our Hodgson/Meyers blog, Spike Speak.

We’ll address all things marketing and some things non-marketing.

The objective is to be relevant and educational and provocative.

Let us know if we aren’t.

Please stay posted.

Thank you,

Gary

Gary Meyers
President