Pitney Bowes Inc. will convey its progressive expansion within the mailstream category in an ad campaign set to premiere Nov. 1.
The “Innovations in the Mailstream: What Will We Put Our Stamp on Next?” campaign highlights capabilities and innovations not traditionally associated with the Stamford, CT, company.
“This campaign was designed to spotlight the modern Pitney Bowes, which has evolved in the past few years,” said Arun Sinha, vice president and chief marketing officer for Pitney Bowes. “Pitney Bowes introduced a new business category, mailstream, at the beginning of the year, and it is now a $250 billion category. Our goal was to build awareness for the mailstream as a category, [and our effort] has been very successful as about a quarter of all senior decision makers in corporate America know the category. It has also changed the perception and attributes of the company substantially.”
Mailstream refers to the software, hardware and services that help companies manage their flow of mail, documents and packages to improve communication.
“Now we want to leverage that success with a new campaign that further connects Pitney Bowes solutions with the mailstream category,” he said.
Mr. Sinha said the ad campaign aims to build awareness of how Pitney Bowes mailstream solutions can help companies, and to do so in a provocative way — acknowledging the consumer perception of Pitney Bowes’ mail heritage. The ads, he said, illustrate the connection between the company’s newer capabilities and its long-established, core business.
Two versions of the campaign depict the link between Pitney Bowes’ traditional business and the new. In the first ad, the Pitney Bowes postage meter impression adorns a newborn baby’s wrist-bracelet. The copy informs readers that Pitney Bowes solutions help health-care providers accurately deliver government-mandated patient communications.
A space satellite’s solar panel bears the Pitney Bowes postage meter impression in the campaign’s second iteration, signifying the company’s advanced address-level data technology, which lets businesses better analyze data to target the market more effectively. Both versions direct readers to www.pb.com/mailstream.
The campaign, developed by OgilvyOne Worldwide in New York, includes print, out-of-home and online media.
The effort will appear in media outlets such as BusinessWeek, CFO, The Economist, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Integrated marketing will supplement the advertising, covering direct mail, events, Webinars and public relations.
Direct mail will focus on how the mailstream can enhance customer relationships. The main audience includes vice presidents in the Fortune 5000, with an emphasis on the Fortune 1000. The audience will be segmented by functional area, such as marketing, finance and operations/IT professionals, and by industry such as health care, pharmaceutical, insurance and financial services. The targets include both prospects and customers.
The online portion aims to deliver an engaging message to users who can interact with the brand, develop unique programs to position Pitney Bowes as an innovative company, test new media vehicles as well as target small businesses, Mr. Sinha said.
“The strategy behind the online campaign is to explore video and surveys to expand our marketing techniques and gain learnings, develop mobile marketing tests to introduce the Pitney Bowes message in a new environment, test e-mail lists as a new vehicle to directly reach the target by job title and industry,” he said.
