The Hindu Business Line : How OgilvyOne won the bronze at Cannes

"A FOCUSSED direct marketing programme backed by a good idea and insightful information about the customer; and we had a winner on our hands." This is how Ms Saroja Kannan, Branch Manager, OgilvyOne Worldwide, Chennai, describes the agency's campaign for Hutch, which apart from successfully targeting the who's who of the city won a bronze at the Cannes Lions — International Advertising Festival.The success story's genesis lies with the cellular service provider's entry into the Chennai market. Hutch, being a late entrant to the market, wanted prominent individuals to subscribe to the service, which would then provide high visibility to the brand. So, when Hutch and OgilvyOne decided to target top professionals from various fields including media, entertainment and business, the niche focus was there but the problem of how to directly communicate with them remained. Direct mails hardly ever get read by the top pros, who have their secretaries to take care of the stream of letters that they get daily; ditto with telephonic conversations.

To overcome these "barriers", OgilvyOne, the direct marketing arm of O&M, decided to employ the newspaper as a delivery mechanism for the direct mails, says Ms Kannan. The preparation stage involved short-listing of the names of the targeted individuals and doing a mock run. Finally, on July 17, 2002, around 1,700 individuals got personalised mails from Hutch in the form of ads on the first page of a business daily.

To enable this exercise, 1,700 extra copies of the newspaper were printed that day. The challenge, therefore, was to get these papers delivered before the usual ones reach the individuals; and it was met successfully — Ms Kannan says the exercise was completed by 6.30 a.m. "It was a matter of execution more than anything else."

The success of the campaign, which was run at a cost of Rs 3 lakh (the cost was contained as the campaign was clubbed with the regular deal for page one ad positions), prompted Hutch to seek a `repeat' within 10 days of the first one. This time, 650 corporates were targeted — "a number (that is) more manageable"! OgilvyOne also conducted similar DM campaigns for Hutch in Kolkata, Delhi and Bangalore. But such a campaign was not taken up in Mumbai due to the logistical difficulties that the city throws up, she says.

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