‘Host Post’ - delivering gratitude to Christmas hosts all over Ireland.

We wanted everyone in Ireland to have the chance to send their host a letter of thanks, so we turned the retailer into a postal service.

‘Host Post’ transformed Tesco’s existing assets so everyone could thank their host this Christmas. We turned the stores into postal offices, with special “Host Post” boxes installed in every one of Tesco’s 148 outlets around the country. Tesco’s mail-outs became thank you stationery with prepaid postage. Even the website became an online letter writing tool. Then when we discovered that all post in Ireland stops on the 22nd of December, we turned their home delivery vans into postal vans, making sure that every last letter made it to every last host in time for Christmas.

Tesco’s “Host Post”, a retail-first, delivered gratitude directly to real Irish hosts, the unsung heroes of Christmas.

‘Host Post’ was part of a larger campaign thanking hosts. It ran across TV, print, social, radio, in-store and OOH, with each execution featuring a personal letter of thanks to a real host in Ireland.

Once it became clear how much the idea of letter-writing resonated with Irish families, ‘Host Post’ was developed into a fully operational, nation-wide service. ‘Host Post’ was crucial to the campaign as it ensured everyone could participate, meaning that hosts all over Ireland received personal letters of thanks from their loved ones.

A full suite of ‘Host Post’ assets was created: ‘Host Post’ boxes in all of Tesco’s 148 stores around Ireland, pre-paid postage stationery that went out to Irish households, a letter-writing app and re-skinned Tesco vans travelling around the country. ‘Host Post’ received and delivered letters from all over Ireland right up until Christmas Eve, three days after the national post had stopped.

Engagement

- 750,000+ letters sent

- Traffic to their website increased by 159% with 150k unique users visiting over the Christmas campaign

- Engagement rate increased 89% on Facebook and 22% on Twitter year-on-year

Impact on business

- Volume sales grew by 3.5% (smashing total market growth by 184%)

- Tesco gained customers who switched from all four other main retailers

- Own brand product sales grew by 6% year-on-year

Impact on brand

- Brand liking increased by 2% year-on-year

- Brand trust increased by 2% year-on-year

- 46% of those agreed that the campaign made them more likely to consider shopping at Tesco

- 48% of those asked agreed that the campaign made them think that Tesco is different to other supermarkets

Tesco wanted to make sure the hosts at Christmas got the thanks they deserved, so when viewers were inspired by our above-the-line campaign thanking real hosts through heartfelt letters, we responded by making it as easy as possible for them to participate too. For the entire Christmas season we turned the retailer into a postal service, transforming existing assets like stores into postal offices, mail outs into free stationary, home delivery vans into postal vans and the website into an online letter writing tool.

Tesco’s “Host Post” delivered gratitude directly to those that deserved it most at Christmas.

We knew that if we wanted to deliver gratitude we needed participation. We needed our audience to not only be inspired to thank their hosts but physically take pen to paper and do it.

Unfortunately, research revealed that letter writing in Ireland is at an all-time low. Astoundingly on average we only send 5 personal letters a year, (Ignite Omnibus 2016) while unsurprisingly the average person receives over 100 emails a day, with 22% spending 1 – 3 hours on social media a day (Kantar Media 2016).

So how did we get them to write thank you letters? We targeted the audience closest to hosts: their families. But knowing how unfamiliar we have all become with this lost art of letter writing, we knew we had to make it as easy as possible.

So we transformed the one place where they saw how much hard work the host does – Tesco.

In Ireland, people had a functional and somewhat distant relationship with Tesco, the ‘big, impersonal, English corporation’. As Tesco approached its yearly Christmas campaign, the brief was: to win the hearts and minds of Irish shoppers.

We realized that every year, there’s one person in every household without whom Christmas simply wouldn’t happen. The Host. These hosts spend on average €157 more on groceries (Kantar Worldpanel, 2016). They also put in all the effort to make Christmas magical for everyone else. And yet they have never been properly acknowledged for all their time, effort and care.

So we decided that instead of a traditional Christmas campaign, we would dedicate all our attention to ensuring these hosts finally got what they deserved. A big thank-you.

Tesco proceeded to hand over their advertising channels to the people of Ireland to personally thank their Christmas host through a heartfelt letter.