We leveraged creative storytelling to turn heads, and it worked:

Everyone remembers the Yellow Pages.

Despite nowadays offering digital marketing services for SMEs like search campaigns, online stores, and websites, Yellow battled the perception that their only offering was the book. Our audience? SMEs, a group so varied it's impossible to specifically target them. Yellow had to go big.

So, we showed New Zealand Robyn Malcolm's undies.

We created an underwear business with Robyn using only Yellow's digital products.

Across nine channels, we teased, revealed Robyn’s journey, and showed SMEs how easy it was, with Yellow.

In New Zealand, Yellow is remembered as the Yellow Pages.

But, Yellow is more than this. They offer Search campaigns, Yellow Online Listings, websites, online stores, Google products, HubSpot, Facebook campaigns, Digital Dashboards, and more.

Despite this transformation, Yellow battled the perception that their only offering was the book.

The brief was to improve Yellow's digital product awareness (long-term goal) and generate leads (short-term goal).

Our objectives:

1. Product awareness among SMEs.

– Increase awareness of Yellow offering websites from 11% to 15%

– Increase awareness of Yellow offering search campaigns from 14% to 17%

– Increase consideration for at least one Yellow digital product from 52% to 55%

2. Once we had their attention, get them to yellow.co.nz to warm them into leads.

– 10,532,381 website impressions

– 800 warm leads

– 200 digital expert consultations

Our idea: launch an online underwear business using only Yellow digital products.

It was called Robyn’s Undies.

We recruited Robyn Malcolm, a well-known Kiwi actress whose TV character famously ran an underwear business.

It turned out that Robyn had always wanted to start an underwear business, so when we approached her with our idea she jumped at the chance (seriously).

Yellow enabled Robyn to:

– Manufacture the undies

– Create and launch e-commerce enabled website

– Create and launch Robyn’s Undies social media

– Run search campaigns

– Create digital ads

– Run social media campaigns

– And offered her digital advice

She sold $30,000 worth of undies in 3-months, donating all profits to charity.

While this was happening, we amplified Robyn’s Undies business story across multiple channels.

Each channel told part of the story, the campaign ran across TV, online video, banners, PR, mobile, social media, billboards, and search.

Yellow's core target audience is the notoriously difficult SME segment, a disparate group made up of vast demographics.

To reach them, we needed to go big, across multiple channels.

We surveyed 1000 SMEs and found they struggled ‘getting out of the garage.’ Quitting your job and starting your own business is sold as a dream, but ambitions of freedom and success quickly fade as owners realise how difficult the transition from a passion project in the garage to a viable, successful business can be.

We also discovered SMEs' most common source of business inspiration is other SMEs. They follow them on social media, listen to their podcasts, buy their products, and read their e-books. Most importantly, they trust them.

Our strategy: Use a real-life example of an aspiring small business to show SMEs how to take their dream out of the garage, using Yellow’s digital products.

1-Week: Tease

To generate earned media we used supersite billboards to tease images of Robyn in her undies. Leveraging a TV-integration we teased ‘something is coming’.

We teased Yellow's 250,000 SME database via social and EDM.

4-Weeks: Reveal

To draw SMEs into Robyn’s story, we created a 30” video where we meet Robyn and her new business. The video introduces us to Robyn Malcolm, now a small business owner. Running her underwear venture from home with the help of Yellow's digital marketing tools, Robyn's world is chaotic, thanks to Yellow, '[her] undies are flying out the door'.

Images of Robyn in her undies brought the ‘Get more exposure with Yellow digital’ platform to life through digital, social, and mobile ads.

12-Weeks: Behind-the-scenes

PR and digital media showcased the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of Robyn’s Undies.

We used product-led digital ads, video diaries of Robyn’s journey, and ‘how to’ guides that acted as lead-generators.

ROI $1: $4

PRODUCT AWARENESS

(Post-campaign research June 2021):

Awareness of Yellow offering search campaigns

Goal: Increase from 14% - 17%

Achieved: 18% - a 29% increase in 3-months

Awareness of Yellow offering websites

Goal: Increase from 11% to 15%

Achieved: 19% - a 73% increase in 3-months

Consideration for >1 Yellow digital product

Goal: Increase from 52% to 55%

Achieved: 60%

LEADS/SALES

Website impressions

Goal: 10,532,381

Achieved: 22,932,378

Warm leads

Goal: 800

Achieved: 1,414 - 77% more than the target, and 110% increase year-on-year - so many that Yellow stopped marketing to nurture them.

Digital expert consultations

Goal: 200

Achieved: 332

Sales for search ads increased by 80% year-on-year

Websites sales increased 5 times year-on-year

Yellow Online paid profile sales doubled year-on-year

Robyn made over $30,000 revenue from sales of undies (March-June). All profits went to charity.

PR - We received a combined reach of 1.9 million