16 CATEGORY 8: Best use of creative
WINNER:Tarsus CAMPAIGN:‘LABELEXPO EUROPE 2009 – THE GREATEST LABEL SHOW ON EARTH!’
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arsus is an international media company with a portfolio of exhibitions, conferences, publications and online media. Its six principal business sectors include aviation, medical, labels and packaging, discount clothing, France and online media. The group’s Labelexpo Europe event is the world's largest event for the label printing and converting industry. Its main exhibitors are suppliers of machinery and materials, while its visitors are mainly label printers/converters. It is a mature event in a mature market. Last year was projected to be a bad year for the printing and packaging industry, with investment in capital equipment hit particularly hard.
Despite the economic downturn, Tarsus hoped the 2009 show would increase its geographic reach, promote growth areas (such as digitial printing) and maintain visitor numbers. The organisation created a personalised and dynamic campaign for visitors aimed at creating a positive message despite the recession.
Roll up, roll up
The theme of the campaign was based on the idea of a circus tent as metaphor for an exhibition hall. The tagline, ‘The greatest label show on Earth!’, was a positive, simple message that reminded people to choose this event over others. Artwork was based on vintage circus posters, using circus metaphors to represent technology at the show (for example, an escapologist for brand
protection/security). The language was humorous and overtly positive – in contrast to the negative media coverage of the economy.
Using vintage-style illustrations helped to emphasise how established the show is, a technique used by many consumer brands when they re-run popular, old ads. From experience at the 2008 show,
Tarsus learned how creative artwork can have an influence on ad positions. For the 2009 event, 53 per cent of its ads were placed in premium positions (inside/back covers etc) despite the fact that all ads were placed on barter basis. In at least one case (Media Management BV) the artwork proved instrumental in convincing them to sign a barter agreement.
On the back of this, several magazines wrote about the campaign – providing
DM extravaganza
Due to increase in email volumes during 2009 (as people were trying to save money), Tarsus put renewed effort into its direct mail. It created five circus characters (three male, two female) and assigned them to recipients based on their gender (ensuring that people in the same office got different characters). The characters were all given circus act names, based on the name of the recipient and an adjective that started with the same letter (e.g. The Amazing Andy, The Marvellous Michael etc). All the copy was based on that character and promoted the show. The flyer was essentially promoting the person ‘performing’ at Labelexpo Europe. The large size of the mailing pieces, as well as the level of detailed personalisation,
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additional coverage. In addition, exhibitors started using the theme in their own promotions and stands.
Stand sales were initially slow – several cancellations were made after slow attendance at the Converflex event – a similar trade show held prior to Labelexpo. However, once the visitor promotion campaign started, the situation completely turned around and Trasus was approached by companies it hadn’t even been speaking to, resulting in a five per cent increase in exhibition space. The company’s publishing team also reported that potential advertisers commented positively on the campaign in conversations, and the campaign made it easier to sell advertising.
led many exhibitors to comment positively on the fact that Tarsus was spending a large amount of money on the campaign. In fact, by carefully reviewing printing and mailing options, the company was able to produce more personalised flyers at the same price as its relatively simple 2007 campaign. The results were a 13 per cent increase in the number of final decision makers visiting the show compared with the 2007 event.
A multilingual marvel
The entire project was rolled out in nine languages and demonstrated digital printing, the fastest growing sector in the industry. Data quality for this was absolutely essential, and ensured that Tarsus could target people effectively. Each record contained 36 variable fields that had to be perfect – as any mistake would be immediately obvious to the recipient. In multilingual countries, such as Belgium and Switzerland, records were split into towns to ensure that the right language for that region was sent. The small number of returns and email bouncebacks (less than 0.02 per cent) is testament to the great effort put into the data. Most of the promotional pieces (mailings, inserts, emails) were tracked live using registration codes, which visitors were asked to enter on the website, enabling the company to constantly review areas of the campaign that needed more focus.
All emails were translated into nine languages and sent to a database of approximately 60,000. Links at the top of each email provided access to all the language versions, in case someone wanted to change their preference. Several emails were personalised using the same characters as the direct mail piece and all the links pointed people to a personalised website (again using the same characters). This ensured that people were treated as individuals rather than just a list of email addresses. Gill Loubser, journalist at Packaging & Print Media, commented, “The campaign was great. I was particularly chuffed with the personalised poster that I received in the mail. The theme worked very well and provided a good hook for editorial headlines.”
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