SUCCESS STORIES: EDS
Challenge:
After Tropical Storm Allison flooded Houston, EDS (one of our clients in Dallas) asked us to develop a direct mail program for their disaster recovery services. The campaign targeted the top 200 Chief Information Officers in the Houston business and government communities. Many of their data centers had been flooded by Allison, which dumped 28 inches of rain on Houston in one day.
C-Level executives are notoriously hard to reach. They hire people to run interference for them. These people screen outsiders to give the execs time to focus on their jobs. As a result, most mailings end up in the trash basket without reaching their intended audience.
Solution:
To avoid this fate, we reasoned that the form of the mailing had to:
- Be unique to stimulate curiosity, be opened, and get past gatekeepers
- Contain intrinsic value to be passed along to the CIO
- Make a compelling statement about our client’s capabilities to be acted upon
To achieve all of those objectives, we created this novel packaging: an aluminum clipboard with the word solved laser-cut into the cover. Inside, it contained 12 case studies that demonstrated how EDS had helped clients avoid or minimize business interruption during catastrophes.
Results:
While the mailings were expensive on a unit-price basis, they more than paid for themselves. Creative development, production and overnight mailing of 200 pieces cost approximately $20,000 or $100 each. However, they opened doors to discussions that eventually netted EDS more than $1 billion in contracts.
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