Most marketing directors think JCDecaux only offers 2m², that’s why JCDecaux sent them what they expect: a miniature 2m² billboard. But there was one mistake. They mixed up their brand product, with the product of their biggest competitor. With this, they attached a letter, where they pushed their buttons a little more. When the marketing directors read a little further JCDecaux revealed why they did this: they wanted them to know how JCDecaux feels every day. Because when most advertisers want to book big formats, they think they have to go to our biggest competitor. But they could easily also go to JCDecaux for that. JCDecaux also has a wide range of big formats. That’s why JCDecaux made the same mistake marketing directors always make with them, and deliberately mix up their brand product with the product of their biggest competitor.

JCDecaux chose to sent a box to Marketing Directors with a real miniature 2m² billboard in it and a poster of their previous campaign. But there was a mistake: JCDecaux intentionally mixed up their brand product, with the product of their biggest competitor. Each poster was specially created for this Direct Mail. For example: Pepsi received a Pepsi Zero poster.There was also an attached letter where JCDecaux pushed their buttons a little more and revealed why they did this.

There was a 15% increased demand for bigger formats. That was exact the increase JCDecaux needed to sold out all their biggest formats for the upcoming 6 months!

With this campaign, we wanted to target Belgium’s biggest marketing directors personally By sending them a personalised Direct Mail.

Historically, JCDecaux has always been most famous for their 2m². They installed their first bus shelter in 1964. Today, JCDecaux offers a wide range of formats. Advertisers and marketing directors, however, still tend to be unaware of this offering and go to the biggest competitor to buy these formats. They still mix up our offering with our biggest competitor’s offering. And that hurts.

This insight was the starting point of our campaign. In a direct mail, we deliberately mixed up the advertiser’s hero product with the one of their competitor. This way, we maximized the stopping power of the medium and triggered the reader to continue to read the attached letter.

In that letter we explained the set-up of the “mistake”. Being confused with a competitor is not fun at all. That’s something we understand. It was the perfect introduction to introduce our complete portfolio and raise awareness of all formats.

Historically, JCDecaux has always been most famous for their 2m² billboards. The company installed their first bus shelter in 1964. Today, JCDecaux offers a wide range of others formats. Advertisers and marketing directors, however, still tend to be unaware of this offering and go to the biggest competitor to buy these formats.

We needed to raise awareness of our other (larger) formats among advertisers and marketing directors & increase the sales of these formats.