Page 183 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

85 IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE
A4, OR A5, OR . . .

I’d say roughly nine in ten of the direct mail pieces that arrive here
at Sunfish Towers are packaged in DL or C5 envelopes. Open them
and the contents are printed on either A4 or A5 pieces of paper. Ho
hum. Even if the copy and design are working together to pull me
into the pitch (which they frequently aren’t), the very first message
the pack sends out, long before it’s opened, is, “Here’s another
boring bit of junk mail.”

This is a golden opportunity, wasted. Consumers, business
executives, professionals—whoever you’re writing to, they’re all so
used to these off-the-peg packs that your words have to work twice
as hard to get you a hearing. It doesn’t have to be like this.

The idea

From a Sunfish client
When we were creating a new suite of direct marketing materials
for this client, we wanted to penetrate the miasma of dreary direct
mail so many executives get sprayed with every day of the week. So
for one particular campaign, we used an undersized envelope. The
letter was as tall as A4 but narrower, so it fitted inside the outer
without a longitudinal fold. Instant cut-through.

Funnily enough you can often fit as many words into a smaller pack
by judiciously editing the images and amount of white space in
the pack. Or use a smaller brochure format but with more pages.
However you do it, going smaller makes your mailing stand out
simply because it’s different. You know the adage, “Beautiful things
come in small packages.” It has some resonance here.

174 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS