Ad agency 1576 gets numbers right to win award

A LOW-COST campaign by 1576 scooped the top prize at Scottish Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Effectiveness Awards last week.

The agency’s work for Scottish Mutual picked up the Grand Prix after a paper by agency boss Mark Gorman showed an initial investment of 600,000 had opened the pensions provider up to 200m of potential new business. 1576 devised a TV commercial-type film, mailed directly to independent financial advisers on CD-ROM and online, that did away with having to pay for advertising airtime.

Gorman, who picked up the award at a ceremony in Edinburgh on Thursday, said: "We discussed doing a corporate campaign for Scottish Mutual in the trade press but then felt there was a better way of doing it. We suggested making a TV commercial but the client didn’t like the idea because it would look as if it was trying to cut out the middleman and sell straight to the consumer."

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The cost of the campaign was the equivalent of acquiring four new customers but Gorman said it paid for itself over 17 months simply by attracting up to 5,000 customers, who previously did business over the telephone, on to the internet. Gorman added: "One of the best things about the campaign was that it was a refreshing way of looking at a problem."

Scottish Mutual has been a 1576 client for five years. The submission also picked up the award for Best Media Thinking. The award is the latest in a string of good news for the agency, after it retained the lucrative VisitScotland advertising account and picked up work for the National Trust for Scotland.

James Best, the group chairman of BMP DDB and convener of judges for the IPA awards, said: "1576’s campaign for Scottish Mutual was very fresh and innovative. It was also strikingly effective. The paper proved beyond doubt the substantial contribution the advertising made to this business. The Scottish IPA Effectiveness Awards celebrate the success stories of services and products that drive the Scottish economy.

"The papers illustrate the certain and quantifiable contribution Scottish agencies make to those successes and these case histories become an important public record of advertising effectiveness."

In addition to 1576, three other gold awards were given to family for Scottish Leader, The Bridge for Modern Apprenticeships, and The Union for its work on s1jobs.com. Citigate SMARTS picked up the Chairman’s Award for its Age Concern Scotland paper. This was the sixth award ceremony, attracting 25 cases from 11 agencies. Kwik-Fit founder Sir Tom Farmer chaired the judging panel.

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