DR Media

Rias puts positive spin on ageing in DRTV drive

by Nikki Sandison Brand Republic 16-Jun-08, 11:20

LONDON - Watson Phillips Norman focuses on the benefits of getting older in a DRTV campaign for over-50s insurer Rias, called 'Better with age'.

Rias is launching the campaign to promote its car insurance products and it focuses on the multiple discounts available to customers over 50-years old.

The TV spot begins with a man in his late 50s sitting on his sofa, picking up his newspaper and thinking: "Some things about getting older I'm not crazy about. But there are compensations."
He puts on his glasses and we see that he is looking at a Rias car insurance ad, which lists a range of discounts available to the over 50s.

There are discounts for: being over 50; being retired; low mileage; having an older car; parking in the garage or on the drive; and up to nine years no claim discount.

The spot ends with the man peering over his glasses at his wife, who is also reading, and saying: "Yes, some things definitely get better with age."

The 60 and 30 second spots, which build on WPN's press and direct mail campaign for Rias, will appear across terrestrial, digital and satellite channels for the next two weeks.
The objective is to recruit new customers for Rias and the ads end by asking people to phone for a free car insurance quote.

Maria Phillips, creative partner at Watson Phillips Norman, said: "Many car insurance ads have a rather 'down market' look. The theme 'some things get better with age' resonates with the target audience and puts a very positive spin on growing older.

"The double entendre at the end brings a touch of humour to balance the very strong sales messages."

Direct marketing: It's all in the mix

by Robert Gray Marketing 10-Jun-08

A simplistic approach doesn't cut it any more. As consumers' media consumption habits change, marketers must invest in a multichannel approach to engaging with them in order to ensure their brand's survival.

Generating high levels of response, conversion or brand engagement is never easy in direct marketing. There is a wealth of variables to get right to achieve a decent return on investment, whether targeting existing customers or prospects.

Unquestionably, it is vital to pick the right mix of channels. However, as channels have proliferated - mail, email, SMS, telemarketing, DRTV, loyalty programmes, customer magazines, experiential - settling on the appropriate ones and giving them the optimum weighting in each campaign is becoming more problematic.

'Consumers have preferences for different channels at different times of the day,' says Direct Marketing Association (DMA) director of media channel development, Robert Keitch. 'No one channel is going to do it for you - end of story. The days of having a simplistic mix are gone. It comes down to understanding who the customer is.'

Consumer habits are evolving; for example, people now spend more time interacting with the web or their mobiles than sitting passively in front of the TV. Richard Higginbotham, head of marketing at marketing services provider CDMS, believes many marketers have as yet failed to exploit this shift.

'Once the customer has been identified, successful multi-channel implementation allows the marketer to actually contact the customer through the channel they prefer,' he says. 'Ensuring customers are receiving communications through a medium to which they are responsive is key to producing customer satisfaction and improving ROI.'

There is plenty of evidence that a multichannel approach to direct marketing tends to deliver far better results than concentration on a single touchpoint. Research from Royal Mail, for instance, has found that integrating digital advertising with direct mail campaigns can increase customer spend by almost 25%, while 55% of 'confident web users' prefer to be contacted by a combination of direct mail and online.

Anthony Miller, head of media development at Royal Mail, says this shows that consumers recognise the benefits of online, email and direct mail for different types of communications - and how well they work together.

Chris Bourke, managing director of mobile ad agency Aerodeon, meanwhile, disputes the received wisdom that SMS is an unpopular direct channel, claiming it can deliver response rates higher than either email or mail. Brands that have experimented with mobile over the past two years are consolidating their lessons and developing mobile marketing strategies.

Personalised communications that cut through the clutter are becoming more important. To achieve this, marketers and agencies need to understand their customers as never before. 'We now have access to sophisticated tools that enable us to track consumers' media consumption, online behaviour and purchasing habits, which we can use to create an individual and tailored communication strategy - bringing us closer to that single customer,' says Andy Snuggs, managing director of digital agency Geronimo. 'Because of the prevalence of personalised communications, consumers expect to be treated on a personal basis, whatever the medium.'

Relevance is rooted in a detailed understanding of customer behaviour, whether based on actual knowledge or intelligent assumptions. Taking a strategic and creative approach to direct marketing is the best way to ensure that the right response is generated more often. Channel selection plays a key role and should be based on an understanding of how the target audience wants to interact with a brand, coupled with knowledge of their stage in the buying cycle.

'The intrusiveness of SMS makes it a poor tool for cold acquisition but its immediacy makes it ideal for informing customers their car insurance renewal is imminent,' says Heather Westgate, chief executive of direct agency TDA.

As consumers' media behaviour evolves, marketers who ensure they choose the most appropriate channels for their message will reap the benefits.