Hard times for postal companies: digital is taking over and the millennial generation hardly ever writes a postcard.

POSTNL, the Dutch postal company, wanted people to reconnect with real mail.

There was virtually no budget for a campaign. So the idea had to rely completely on PR and going viral on social media. So it had to be truly newsworthy and inspire people to act.

Strategy was to focus on Valentines Day, the most personal mail event. How to make it even more personal in a way digital mail could never match? WITH A KISS!

The day before Valentines Day Dutch people could send their Valentine card with a lipstick kiss instead of a stamp! Special software recognized the lipstick kisses.

After the press release that announced this global first things exploded. The kiss was trending topic for several days. All major newspapers, TV news and online news sites reported extensively. It was picked up by BBC world news and German TV ass through written and online media on all continents.

Results were staggering. With a budget under €10,000, about 3 times more Valentines cards were sent. Because of all the attention, even paid Valentines cards with a stamp increased 40% (probably men :-))! The brand values of PostNL in tracking research showed the strongest increase ever.

PostNL’s Valentines kiss is a truly newsworthy idea that traveled solely on PR and social media and outperformed any other campaign in the history of PostNL that DID have a multi-million media budget.

Research shows especially Millennials increasingly do not see any added value in real mail compared to digital mail.

PostNL wanted therefore people to truly reconnect with real mail, which meant:

- Inspire people to send a postcard again

- By doing so making people experience that real mail is far more personal than digital mail can ever be.

As a brand objective, PostNL wanted to boost its brand values as a result of the campaign.

The press release immediately caused an online tsunami; trending topic for days. All Dutch newspapers, major TV news shows and online news sites reported extensively. A famous radio DJ spontaneously asked his female listeners to send him as many kissed cards as possible. In Dutch schools children were assigned to create kissed Valentines cards after which entire classes mailed them collectively. BBC World News and German TV made reports from the PostNL distribution centre.

It all lead to a huge response:

- Almost three times as much Valentines mail was sent.

- Even an increase of 40% in paid Valentines mail (with stamp). Probably men!

- In tracking, the brand values of PostNL showed the highest increase ever.

PostNL’s Valentines kiss is a truly newsworthy idea that traveled solely on PR and social media and outperformed any other ATL campaign in the history of PostNL with media budgets of millions.

Big Idea: sending Valentines cards with lipstick kisses instead of stamps! Making it far more personal and intimate than ever before, something that could never be done digitally.

PostNL had to rewrite all its recognition software so all possible lipstick kisses would be identified. After extensive testing it was decided to go ahead with this global first: on February 13 all postcards and letters ‘sealed with a kiss’ that were mailed before 5 PM would be delivered the very next day!

Since it was crucial people would understand the idea, a romantic online explanatory video was shot. Point of view being a postcard, we see a lovely girl writing on and eventually kissing the screen.

This video was included in the press release four days before Valentines Day. After that, it was out of our hands. With no ATL support, being completely dependent on PR and social media.

Everybody knows these are hard times for postal companies. For almost every service they offer, there now is a cheaper and faster digital alternative. The result? Declining volumes, huge cost saving programs, lots off lay-offs and therefore hardly any marketing budget.

Consumers are becoming more digital by the day and the millennial generation actually hardly ever writes a post card.

With no marketing budget, PostNL was looking for an idea that would reach millions of people and inspire them to send a postcard again. So it had to rely completely on the power of PR and social media.

Strategically is was decided to focus on Valentines Day since this already is the most personal mail event. How could it become even more personal in a way digital mail could never be?

Basically everyone capable of sending a post card was target group, with a special focus on Millenials since this generation hardly ever uses real mail anymore.

Given the budget (virtually nothing) and the target focus, it meant the idea had to be both newsworthy (PR) as well as inspirational (viral on social media).

Consequently we strongly focused on Twitter (sharing) and on a strong press release.