Designing Award-Winning Credit Card Campaigns
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to create a campaign that would help enhance our loan assets by encouraging customers to use their credit cards and be entered to win a trip to a resort in Hawaii. Of course, it had to be our very own Disney Aulani Resort and Spa.
The campaign included a mailer, a pre-approval letter, an email to three different targeted groups, print ads, online and in-branch presence. While this project could have been the standard job where we use characteristic photography assets from the company, we wanted to take the project a step ahead by creating memorable deliverables. We worked closely with the resort brand style guide and went to work with some concepts. All the print materials were created using InDesign.
THE MAILER – For the mailer, we wanted to do something larger and in unusual dimensions that would attract attention when received in mailboxes. For that reason we went with a square design. In order to add some weight to the piece, we went with a 120 lb weight cover. The element that makes it real special is the use of a dye cut in the shape of a flower, which is used as a framing device to expose some of the most beautiful and colorful photography of the resort. The panels were all built together on each of its sides. This means that a lot of measuring was involved to ensure that the images would fit seamlessly when the panels closed over each other. In looking at the front panels below, the front panel (image of dad and child) on the right, and the panel next to it in brown (the back panel), were the same size. The other two panels' width were smaller in order to fold internally. The dye cut panel was glued onto the panel next to it in order to create the framing effect. The whole mailer was also glued with glue dots on the top and bottom corners (inside the front panel), in order for the packet to stay together.
UPDATE – On April 2017, the Credit Union National Association awarded a Diamond Award for excellence in direct mailer marketing.
The mailer with four distinct panels that when closed, connects the images together. The magenta area shows the dye cut.
Detailed sample of the mailer interior with the first panel opened; Detail of dye cut showing lifestyle photography.
THE PRE-APPROVAL OFFER LETTER – The letter came in a customized envelope that carried more of the colorful photography of the resort. The offer letter inside is legal size needed to fit all the required disclosure for the offer. The letter was designed following the brand style guide where photography assets are organized with white stroking without overlaps.
PRINT AD – The only other print item designed for this effort was a full page print ad that appeared for several print runs of various local magazines. The print ad followed the same overarching photography and layout style.
DIGITAL – The rest of the materials produced for this project were digital graphics for the consumer website and email deployment. These were created using Photoshop. The email included animated gifs of changing photos. The same images were used on the digital channels to connect with the print collateral.
Consumer web site hero image.
Banner ad for pre-approved customers.
Email sample.
Auto Loan Offers that turn heads
The summer of 2015 was hot, really hot, and the same was the expectations to attract new customers to act on our auto loans by the end of summer. We had done all types of marketing in the past focusing on interest rates, terms, and other features, but this time we started from scratch by splitting our audience into two and designed communications specifically for them based on the features that usually appealed to them as found in research data.
The creative brief was ambitious: attack the two different audience groups three times in a three-month period by mail using different types of mailers, coupled with three emails that followed up each mailer. In total, the deliverables were 6 different mailers and 6 different emails.
For the first piece, we created a self-mailer with 6 panels (three on each side). This piece reinforced facts about the offer. The second piece was a letter with a well-designed outer envelope that highlighted how the audience could save more with our offer. The third piece was a postcard that reinforced a specific benefit of the offer.
NEW VEHICLE OFFER CREATIVE
For the audience targeted with the new vehicle offer, the look portrayed a close-up of a bright red car, close enough to see the specs of paint. The headlines were designed to look like chrome logos. The design was to be simple, to help focus on the message. The emails also followed the same look but were designed to fit the digital space with strong headers.
Self mailer for new vehicles - Mailer #1
Letter and Envelope for new vehicles - Mailer #2
Post card for new vehicles - Mailer 3
Accompanying Emails for new vehicle offer
PRE-OWNED VEHICLE OFFER CREATIVE
For the audience targeted with pre-owned vehicle offers, we designed the same three mailers and emails but with a different look than the new vehicle offer. The style utilized pattern in the design which was made profound by the integration of real customer testimonial photography.
Self-mailer for pre-owned vehicles - Mailer #1
Letter and envelope for pre-owned vehicles - Mailer #2
Post card for pre-owned vehicles - Mailer #3
Accompanying emails for pre-owned vehicle offer
There were constants on both audience creative looks, such as the integration of real customer testimonial photography, the use of our brand colors, and clean design and simple messages that are easy to digest. Within each campaign, we kept the same fonts and effects to enhance the story from one piece to another. The project was so well received, it exceeded our loan goals.
Bringing Life to Life Insurance Awareness Month
The month of September is considered Life Insurance Awareness month across the country and you may see increased marketing around the subject matter. In an effort to highlight life insurance at Partners, with the help of our insurance partners, we put together a campaign tactic focusing on the real cost of insurance which continues to be very low. The concept I created was simple, and it needed to be in order to allow our audience to welcome the communications in a special way. The visuals of coins adding up a dollar are all it takes to invest in life insurance for your family. The simple line that reads WHAT YOU GET FOR A DOLLAR A DAY became the most important message, followed by "A dollar doesn't go very far these days but it can still buy you and your family affordable life insurance." To highlight the coins even further, motion graphics were used to create waves around the coins.
Since we had an already established relationship with a 3rd party insurance company, we were able to collaborate with copy-writing that supported the messaging.
The main communication piece for this campaign was to be a mailer with a coupon and a business reply envelope. The letter included a handy worksheet form that customers could fill out to analyze how much life insurance they need.
After the letter was mailed, we followed up with those same customers via an email that included similar creative and messaging.
We also supported the campaign at our branch locations with digital posters and buck slips, while on our consumer website, we promoted as an ongoing promotion mention (via a hero image that customers were able to click through to a detail page that linked to the insurance company site).
Exterior Mailer Envelope
Mailer Letter with detachable form
Website showing Insurance Awareness Month advertising