The Private Life of Mail - Methodology and the making of the story - January 2015

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MAIL

January 2015

THE MAKING

OF THE STORY

Mail’s share of total advertising revenue declining

No industry visibility of the medium

Perception of being boring and analogue

No real understanding of how mail actually works

LIFE IN EARLY 2013

2

3

HOW WE WENT ABOUT ADDRESSING

18 months of investigation

Significant investment

8 strands of research

THE PROBLEM

8 STRANDS OF RESEARCH

4

8 STRANDS OF RESEARCH

5

Ethnographics

Ethno Quant

Neuroscience

Tactility

IPA Databank

BrandScience

Core Secondary

Mail & Digital 1

Mail & Digital 2

Values

Desk

Decode Sciencescan

TGI

IPA Touchpoints

6

LIFE BEYOND THE LETTERBOX

PHASE ONE: ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

12 Households

Range of Life

Stages

7 days

Mail not

specifically

mentioned

(Media Moments)

Interviewer visits

- pre, during and

post

Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

800+ hours of

CCTV footage

Motion sensitive

cameras

30 - Louise opening post.mpg

30 - Louise opening post.mpg

61 - The Hayes family.mpg

61 - The Hayes family.mpg

36 - Jill and James - who controls the mail.mpg

36 - Jill and James - who controls the mail.mpg

SMALL UNOBTRUSIVE CAMERAS

7Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

MAIL LIVES ON IN THE HOME


MAIL TRIGGERS ACTION


JACK & BECKI DISCUSS DOORDROPS


MAIL FLOWS THROUGH THE HOME

11

Challenges

the direct

media

assumption

of a singular

impact

Part of the

fabric of daily

life - multiple

impacts over

time

Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

Holding Area

Pile

Display

12

LIFE BEYOND THE LETTERBOX

PHASE TWO: QUANT SURVEY

Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014

1,129 adults

Nat Rep

Online

How the

respondent

had interacted

with their most

recent mail

delivery

What other

mail was still in

the home?

What had

happened to it?

MAIL IS INTERACTED WITH AND SHARED

13

22 mins per

day reading

mail(3)

23% of mail

within a

household is

shared(2)

48% of

commercial

mail is

interacted with

each day(1)

(1 & 2) = Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014 (Interact = read, kept or acted on an item)

(3) = IPA Touchpoints 5, 2014 (Monday to Saturday reading)

MAIL IS DISPLAYED

14

39% of

people

display mail

in their

home


MAIL PERSISTS

15

Days within home

17Addressed advertising mail

38Unaddressed mail (door drops)

45Bills and statements


16

WHAT PEOPLE SAY AND WHAT PEOPLE DO

ARE DIFFERENT

64%

Had opened a

piece of

advertising

mail that day

62%

Say they

reject all

advertising

mail

BUT


17

NEUROSCIENCE

163 respondents

In home – small groups

Naïve to purpose of study

Owned and placed pieces of mail / email

Asked only to open the mail / emails they would open at home

STEADY STATE TOPOGRAPHY (SST)

Reading

Mail

Internet

browsing

& reading

emails

Television

Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Neuro-Insight, 2013

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NEUROSCIENCE

STEADY STATE TOPOGRAPHY (SST)


Speed of response in the brain is measured -

not simply the amount of activity

KEY SST MEASURES

19Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Neuro-Insight, 2013

Engagement

The extent to which the

participant finds the

stimulus to be personally

relevant to them

Emotional

Intensity

How strongly the

participant feels about the

stimulus

This can be a positive or

negative sensation

Long Term

Memory

Encoding

(LTME)

The extent to which the

brain is storing the

information it’s getting from

the stimulus

A high score doesn’t

necessarily mean that the

stimulus is actively

retained in memory, but

similar subsequent stimuli

are likely to trigger

stronger recall

KEY SST MEASURES

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Emotional

Intensity

Engagement

Long-Term Memory Encoding (LTME)


21

PROVEN CORRELATION BETWEEN LONG TERM

MEMORY ENCODING AND BUSINESS OUTCOMES

22

EXCEPTIONALLY HIGH PERFORMANCE FOR

MAIL ON THE MEASURES THAT COUNT

Best

performance

recorded

across

studies

No

significant

differences

by age or

attitudes to

mail


TV PRIMES MAIL

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Good

evidence of

brain

related

multiplier

effect


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AND MAIL PRIMES SPECIFIC ASPECTS

OF TV ADS


More

strongly

stimulated at

specific (call

to action)

moments

Resonated

with the

messages

previously

read in the

mail

Seen First

Seen Last

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THE ACADEMIC BIT

PEOPLE PLACE VALUE ON THINGS THEY CAN TOUCH

Paper vs. Screen

Physical media

= better retention

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age – The

Science of Paper vs. Screen. Scientific

American, April 2013

Multisensory Learning

More senses

= faster absorption

Shams & Seitz

Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2008

Endowment Effect

Touch = Ownership = Value

Shu & Peck

Journal of Consumer Research, 2009

26

TACTILITY RESEARCH

COGNITIVE AND EMOTIONAL IMPACT OF PAPER

50

observational

interviews

12 biometric

lab interviews

Invented five

brands to

remove prior

associations

Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Tactility, Trinity McQueen, 2013

WE INVENTED FIVE BRANDS


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HANDLING PHYSICAL ITEMS CHANGES THE

WAY PEOPLE INSTINCTIVELY TALK

“I’d feel bad about

throwing this in the bin” “The information felt expensive”


Tactile

effects

stimulated

emotions

Tactility

reduced the

cognitive

effort

Cognitive

Miser

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A WIDER RANGE OF WORDS

MORE EMOTIONAL – LESS FUNCTIONAL


Online Retail Travel Leisure

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DOES THIS HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT

ON THE CLIENTS WALLET?

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IPA EFFECTIVENESS DATABANK ANALYSIS BY

416 client cases

Comparing those with mail (97) vs. without mail (319)

Controlled to ensure no bias:

Campaign duration

Relative budget size

Performance in winning creative awards

Category dynamics (growing, static, declining)

Pre-campaign market share

Looked at results for:

Sales

Acquisition

Market share growth – absolute and efficiency

Efficiency = how strongly Extra Share of Voice (ESOV) drives growth

MARKETING EFFECTIVENESS EXPERT PETER FIELD

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EFFICENT PERFORMANCE ON

KEY METRICS

Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, IPA Meta-Analysis, Peter Field, 2013

Campaigns

with mail

delivered

market share

growth with 3x

the (ESOV)

efficiency

27% more

likely to

deliver top-

ranking sales

performance

40% more

likely to

deliver top-

ranking

acquisition

33

ECONOMETRIC META-ANALYSIS OF

THE

401 cases - 56 used mail and 42 door drops

One years data per case – 3 campaigns on average

Update of our work done in 2010 – c.70% of cases 2010 onwards

Nine media types covered – mail, door drops, TV, print (combined

newspapers and magazines), out-of-home, radio, online display, search and

cinema

All of the mail / door drop cases except for two were multi-channel

Revenue ROI

Return over 3-6 months

Categories covered - telecommunications, financial services, retail, public

sector, media and leisure / entertainment

BRANDSCIENCE “RESULTS VAULT”

EVIDENCE OF ROI MEDIA MULTIPLIER

34

When mail was

included total

communications

ROI jumped

from £4.22 to

£4.73 – a 12%

increase

Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, BrandScience Meta-Analysis, 2014

MAIL AND DIGITAL

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Part 1 (2013) Part 2 (2014)

Methodology Online quantitative survey

Sample size 1,000 2,375

Sample characteristics

coveredDemographics

Demographics

Digital behaviour (device

ownership, frequency of use)

Communications media

covered

Mail

Email

Mail

Email

Online Portal

Sectors covered Not sector specificFinance, Retail, Mail Order,

Utilities, Telecoms

Response types covered

Emotional

Physical

Commercial

Emotional

Physical

Commercial

Digital (e.g. response via

social media/downloading app)

Mail types covered Advertising Specific to sector

36

VALUES (V2C DRIVES V2B)

WHAT GOOD MAIL LOOKS LIKE AND ACHIEVES

Follow up in–

home interviews,

mail collection

and diary

keeping exercise

Focus groups x 6

Recruitment of

participants for

ongoing in-home

research

Quantitative

assessment on

preliminary

qualitative findings.

Omnibus

questions among

2,000

respondents

Final in-home

interview and

diary/ post

collection

Full quantitative

survey 3,000

respondents (sector

focus)

Confirmation of v2c

dynamics and the

longer term value of

mail.

Qualitative understanding of

the value of mail.

Quantitative verification

of v2c;

what drives v2c and

what destroys v2c

Mail that they had

recently

received… that

they found useful

and/or interesting

• FS

• Retail

• Utilities/telecom

• Govt / Health

• Travel / Tourism

• Charities

12 Ethnography households

14 focus groups

99 depth interviews

213 Neuroscience / biometric participants

401 BrandScience’s ‘Results Vault’ cases

416 IPA Effectiveness Databank cases

1,000+ academic articles reviewed

9,504 respondents across our telephone and online quantitative surveys


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38


Mail persists in the home

Mail drives strong emotional engagement

Mail triggers powerful brain responses

Mail primes other media

Mail delivers a strong return

THANK YOU

39

The Private Life of Mail - Methodology and the making of the story - January 2015

Marketing

royal mail marketreach

mail persists15days

mail flows

mail lives

commercial mail

mail emails

piece of advertising

trinity mcqueen