Royal Mail partners with advertisers to launch sampling initiative

by Alison Donnelly, Marketing 04-Sep-08, 12:11

LONDON - Royal Mail has launched a direct marketing initiative which involves the delivery of boxes of free branded goods to consumers.

Royal Mail is delivering a box that fits into household letterboxes, containing free mini-versions of various products. After an initial stage of test mailing 30,000 people have signed up receive the boxes, which contain a range of goods designed to drive brand awareness among target consumers.

The test mailing, to just under 1000 ABC1 males, included a range of brands including a small tub of Play Doh from Sony Bravia, reflecting its ‘plasticine bunnies' advertisement, while Nissan provided a branded box of soap crayons and Nintendo Wii included a sweatband.

Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman at Ogilvy Group UK, described the initiative as ‘one of the biggest ideas in direct marketing in years.'

Royal Mail, which developed the solution in partnership with Matter Media Limited, is now talking to advertisers that want to be involved in the next Matter mailing scheduled for October.

Fraser Chisholm, head of media propositions at Royal Mail added: ‘Media is changing and advertisers can no longer rely on consumers seeing or hearing their messages - they really have to engage to create standout and there is no better way than putting the brand directly into their hands.'