VW creates one of the top direct marketing campaigns of 2010

A direct marketing campaign from Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS), promoting ways to increase customer loyalty, has been recognised by "the Bible of British adland" ‘Campaign’ as the runner up Direct marketing campaign from 2010.

Campaign is an industry leading marketing magazine which each year announces its review of the creative output of British Advertisers. The review covers categories including Agency of the Year, Campaign of the Year and Direct Campaign. Volkswagen Financial Services came second in the Top 10 Direct Campaigns section ahead of entries from BT, Virgin Holidays and Mini.

The VWFS initiative, created by advertising agency DDB, targeted 225 Managing Directors of VW retailers about the importance of vehicle service plans as a customer loyalty tool, sending an authentic Volkswagen CCTV security disc. When played it showed two Volkswagen salesmen caught on camera doing strange things to make their customers come back to the showroom. Such as swapping the customer’s jackets around or putting office stationary in their bags as they left. The two men even stole a customer’s dog. Campaign highlighted the humour and impressive conversion rates as to why the work gained such a high placing.

Graham Wheeler, Joint Managing Director of Volkswagen Financial Services said, “This is fantastic news for the entire company. Everything we do is about the correct use of resources, such as the industry professionals who created the vehicle service plans and this mailing, to help our dealerships develop an ongoing relationship with the customer.

And it worked, 39% of everyone we mailed went on to view the presentation at the end of the DVD and following the campaign, conversion of vehicle service plans increased from 24% to 49%.”