P&O - All aboard for stress-free travel

Target audience: Lapsed customers and prospects

Budget: Undisclosed

Agency: Bright

Challenge

With the rise of low-cost airlines and cheap flights, taking the ferry has become a less popular way of travelling on holiday. Luring back customers presents a huge challenge to ferry operators such as P&O.

Strategy

Flying may be quick, cheap and convenient, but it's also stressful, with long airport security queues and poor food two of the most common consumer gripes. P&O Ferries wanted to play on the notion that taking the ferry is less stressful.

"We found that travellers had forgotten that going by ferry could be an enjoyable and convenient proposition, with no need to wait three hours to board as you do at the airport," says Morgane Quentric, DM manager at P&O Ferries.

The company also wanted to increase online bookings over the summer months and capture data for future campaigns.

P&O was keen to encourage potential customers to book via its website and worked with agency Bright to devise an online campaign aimed at lapsed and potential customers.

Execution

All work, on and offline, would encourage recipients to visit a microsite, incentivised by a chance to win a two-week holiday to France.

Website

The resulting microsite was a humorous take on a stress test featuring the 'head' of the fictitious P&O department of scientific research, Dr Brian Ferry. Visitors were asked to fill in some details and opt in to receive P&O communications before placing their hand on the screen.

A series of images of flying on holiday, including delayed signs, people queuing at security, eating airport food and sitting on cramped planes was shown, along with a heart monitor depicting the participant's heart-rate rising all the time. Visitors could then enter the draw for a holiday.

"We wanted to make the work quirky, funny and interactive, but ensure people recognised that there was some truth in the idea," says Quentric.

Direct mail

Packs were sent to 200,000 lapsed P&O customers. The outside of the pack showed a brown bag, the kind that might be used to breathe into in the case of a panic attack, with the message 'Don't forget to take this bag when flying abroad on holiday' printed below the address window.

Inside was a series of cartoons, illustrating the hazards of flying, in the style of instructional cards found on planes, showing what to do in case of an emergency. Packs encouraged recipients to visit postresstest.co.uk to take the test, and enter the prize draw.

Email

Emails were sent to 650,000 prospects, comprising 450,000 lapsed and current low-value customers and 200,000 prospects. The creative theme mirrored that of the mail packs, with the aim of driving people to the website. Banners, skyscrapers and MPU online ads featured on portals such as MSN and Yahoo!

Results

P&O received 55,000 visits to the microsite, with 87 per cent of visitors completing the stress test. Of this 87 per cent, 30,000 registered with P&O. Visits were tracked through the process, with 1,500 bookings attributed to the campaign.

A tracking link was used on the email and banners and 14 per cent of mail recipients entered their details on the site. "There are also people who will have received the email and booked later, and some who would at least consider taking the ferry as an alternative to flying next year," adds Quentric.

The campaign also benefited from a viral effect, with 7,000 people taking the stress test after being sent it by a friend.

txt2email

You can send a copy of this article to a friend's email account by texting 'MxD 1134 recipients email address', to 86222. Text messages are charged at standard network rates. Powered by Shift Click.