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
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HOW WE WENT ABOUT ADDRESSING
 18 months of investigation
 Significant investment
 8 strands of research
THE PROBLEM

8 STRANDS OF RESEARCH
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8 STRANDS OF RESEARCH
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 Ethnographics
 Ethno Quant
 Neuroscience
 Tactility
 IPA Databank
 BrandScience
Core Secondary
 Mail & Digital 1
 Mail & Digital 2
 Values
Desk
 Decode Sciencescan
 TGI
 IPA Touchpoints

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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

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

MAIL LIVES ON IN THE HOME
8Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

MAIL TRIGGERS ACTION
9Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

JACK & BECKI DISCUSS DOORDROPS
10Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Media Moments, Trinity McQueen, 2013

MAIL FLOWS THROUGH THE HOME
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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

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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
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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
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39% of
people
display mail
in their
home
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014

MAIL PERSISTS
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Days within home
17Addressed advertising mail
38Unaddressed mail (door drops)
45Bills and statements
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Ethnographic Quant, Trinity McQueen, 2014

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

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

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PROVEN CORRELATION BETWEEN LONG TERM
MEMORY ENCODING AND BUSINESS OUTCOMES

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EXCEPTIONALLY HIGH PERFORMANCE FOR
MAIL ON THE MEASURES THAT COUNT
Best
performance
recorded
across
studies
No
significant
differences
by age or
attitudes to
mail
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Neuro-Insight, 2013

TV PRIMES MAIL
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Good
evidence of
brain
related
multiplier
effect
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Neuro-Insight, 2013

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AND MAIL PRIMES SPECIFIC ASPECTS
OF TV ADS
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Neuro-Insight, 2013
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

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

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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”
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Tactility, Trinity McQueen, 2013
Tactile
effects
stimulated
emotions
Tactility
reduced the
cognitive
effort
Cognitive
Miser

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A WIDER RANGE OF WORDS
MORE EMOTIONAL – LESS FUNCTIONAL
Source: Royal Mail MarketReach, Tactility, Trinity McQueen, 2013
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

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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
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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
covered
Demographics
Demographics
Digital behaviour (device
ownership, frequency of use)
Communications media
covered
Mail
Email
Mail
Email
Online Portal
Sectors covered Not sector specific
Finance, 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

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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
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MAIL
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THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MAIL
 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
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