THE IMPORTED AD

TitleTHE IMPORTED AD
BrandDHL EXPRESS AUSTRALIA
Product / ServiceDHL IMPORT EXPRESS
CategoryB04. Business Products & Services
EntrantCLEMENGER BBDO SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company CLEMENGER BBDO SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Advertising Agency CLEMENGER BBDO SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
David Halter Clemenger Proximity Sydney Planner
Henry Welch Clemenger Proximity Sydney Campaign Manager
Cate Stuart- Robertson Clemenger Proximity Sydney Senior Account Director
Emily Perrett Clemenger Proximity Sydney Group Account Director
Tim Mcpherson Clemenger Proximity Sydney Head Of Craft
Katrina Jarratt Clemenger Proximity Sydney Art Director
Tom Russell Clemenger Proximity Sydney Copywriter
Rebecca Carrasco Clemenger Proximity Sydney Creative Director
Paul Nagy Clemenger Proximity Sydney Executive Creative Director

The Brief

The target audience was small business owners in Australia. There were two segments: cross-sell customers who use DHL but not for imports, and lapsed customers who have previously used DHL for imports but stopped shipping. The brief was to get small business owners in Australia to choose DHL Import Express when importing their goods from overseas markets. Most freight companies can make similar claims about delivery speed. So instead of simply talking about DHL’s claims, we decided to prove them.

Creative Execution

Most freight companies can make similar claims about their service. The Imported Ad not only proved our speed and reliability, it showed that DHL has ultimate faith in their own people. Every step of the Imported Ad campaign was a demonstration of DHL Express in action. The newspapers were packed in Shanghai by DHL handlers, flown in a dedicated DHL plane to Australia, distributed across the country and then individually hand delivered by DHL drivers. All within the promised three days.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

To achieve our response rate of 3%, we sent our target their very own DHL import. We took out an ad on the front page of a Chinese newspaper. The ad – the only English in the entire paper – promised small business owners in Australia that we would have a copy in their hands within three days. We then put our import service to the test. Not only did we deliver on our promise, but by making our delivery deadline public we left people in no doubt that DHL was a freight company they could truly trust.

Results

Firstly, it was crucial to the success of the campaign that all the newspapers were delivered on time. And they were. In fact, over 60% of the papers were delivered early – within just two days. This led to the campaign beating all response rate targets. We increased our response rate by 85% amongst our lucrative cross sell market, meaning we acquired customers that we know are highly profitable. An incredible 100% of leads generated from the campaign are now regularly importing with DHL.