Research shows that 92% of people still appreciate receiving a physical Christmas card, as it evokes a feeling of being personally cared for. But there is an increasingly large group that does not receive that personal attention during Christmas: lonely people. The main insight of this activation is that we found a way to reach thousands of lonely people in the Netherlands. We found out that the postal carriers of PostNL know exactly who gets a Christmas card and who doesn’t, since they pass these houses on their routes every single day. So now we knew how to reach them, but the questions remained of how we were going to provide these people with a little bit of personal attention.

We developed a campaign in which we activated people to write a Christmas card –not only to their loved ones- but also to a lonely heart.

With the purchase of 20 Christmas stamps they received one additional promo stamp that could be used to write a personal Christmas card to a lonely heart. Our postal carriers could recognize the “Christmas card for the lonely” on the promo stamp and made sure they delivered the Christmas card to someone who is lonely and hadn’t receive any Christmas cards yet. We used the human data of our own postal carriers to target lonely people.

A few of the Christmas cards recipients were interviewed, which we turned into heartfelt mini online documentaries. These recipients live on Corrine’s route, one of PostNL’s postal carriers, who is very much aware of the lonely people in her area and also stars in the documentaries. The emotion of the recipients activated even more Dutch people to participate in the activation.

Over 200.000 people who bought Christmas stamps used the free promo stamp to participate in the activation. In a small country as The Netherlands this is a huge amount. This is how unique human data made Christmas a little less lonely for a lot of people.

The campaign had a huge positive effect on the PostNL Brand Image:

- Consumers: 60% > 70% (goal 62%)

- Business: 58% > 72% (goal 62%)

As you needed to buy 20 Christmas stamps to participate, the campaign was also a commercial success for PostNL.