We all like getting stuff for free, right? I received my Matter box at last on Tuesday of this week – see left. It had communications from all sorts of disparate brands Cadburys, Harper Collins, Original Source, but the interesting thing for me was that the brands had obviously thought carefully about managing the ROI on their investment and had put in place websites or other digital experiences that would help them to assess the worth of their involvement in the project.
THe Matter Box is s great example of 360 communications and of the beauty of targeting. Most of the people that received them in the first wave (pilot) were the linked up, online ubernetworkers, early adopters. The second wave are people like me, who know some of those people and liked the idea. I had to fill in a questionnaire and I know that some friends of mine didn’t get exactly the same box as me, so I assume that I was being targeted.
From online recruitment the recipient is directed back online via a real world engagement. The opportunity to touch in and out of people’s lives at appropriate moments is how all really good marketing campaigns are delivered. Digital delivers that more effectively than most other media, mobiles are with you all the time, you are connected to the web at home and at work – you can’t watch tv at work.
The principles of Matter Box are just the principles of 360 communications, but they came out of digital and go back there. We need to be confident of our excellent DRM offer in these difficult times because it brings clients value and can be really good fun for ourselves at the same time.
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On December 11th, 2008, Vikki Chowney said...
I agree that the beauty of the Matterbox is in receiving something tangible, that you can pick up and play with in the offline world.
I wasn’t however, aware that these were targeted? It seems like we had pretty much the same box, it might be interesting to compare notes!
Those I’ve spoken to about their boxes have had the same contents as me, but maybe that says something about the similarity of the preferences within my network.
As far as I’m aware, this was the first mail-out, so perhaps the variation of brands involved was limited this time around and the boxes will become more diverse as time goes on.
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On January 6th, 2009, Katie Streten said...
Ah well maybe I was attributing them more discernment than they were due! Or perhaps they just didn’t like my mate…
I think the boxes will become more diverse but what is interesting is that there was a pilot mailout earlier last year and a couple of the brands from the pilot were in this most recent mailout – which suggests to me that the idea works for brands.
Looking forward to my next.
What’s the Matter now?