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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
IMC PERSPECTIVE 16-3
532
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
16. Sales Promotion © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Getting Consumers to Love the Valpak Blue Envelope
Cox Target Media provides direct-marketing services
and solutions to advertisers who want to reach specific
target audiences. Its first branded product, the
Valpak blue envelope, has been mailed to consumers
for over 35 years and is currently distributed to more
than 50 million homes and businesses throughout the
United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the United
Kingdom. Every year, 500 Valpak mailings deliver over
15 billion coupons and advertising offers to consumers
in highly recognizable light blue envelopes. Valpak is
sold through a network of over 220 independent franchisees
and has a varied reputation that depends on
the quality of the local business owner and content
mix. As a direct-mail product, Valpak relies on consumers
to open the envelope and examine the contents
to spur increased redemptions of the coupons and
other promotional offers for its clients’ products.
In 2001 Cox Target Media conducted extensive
research to determine the overall awareness, growth
potential, and consumer perception of the blue envelope.
The research showed that Valpak’s blue envelope
was perceived as a locally mailed product and that its
dated design, which had not changed in 15 years, was a
turn-off to image-conscious national advertisers. Cox
wanted to attract new advertisers as users of its service
and leverage relationships with its existing clients,
and it recognized that these problems had to be
addressed. In 2002 Cox redesigned the blue envelope
and launched an extensive advertising campaign to
reposition Valpak with the consumer. The new design
includes an updated Valpak logo as well as a
Valpak.com logo to send shoppers online, splashy
graphics and re-energized blue colors to refresh the
envelope, and lively color photos that change with the
seasons.
Cox also created the Valpak “Loves” advertising campaign
with the goal of upscaling the Valpak image in
the mind of consumers and potential advertisers. The
campaign was designed to connect the contents of the
blue envelope with the activities and objects that are
already central to the end users’ lives. Four television
commercials and four complementary print ads were
created featuring consumers who closely profile the
demographics of people who already take advantage of
the coupons and other savings offers found within Valpak.
They are everyday, yet upscale, people who enjoy
everyday pleasures like improving their homes or
engaging in a family outing. The ads also highlight the
categories of content and savings that Cox’s research
indicated consumers want to find inside the blue envelope.
The tagline used in all of the commercials and
print ads is “There’s something in it for you,” which
reinforces the benefits consumers receive from the
offers contained in the Valpak envelope.
The four TV commercials created for the campaign
ran on national spot television in 92 Nielsen Designated
Market Area territories. Valpak franchise owners
were also invited to supplement the national spot
placement by purchasing additional time on local stations.
Two of the commercials were adapted to 10- and
20-second formats to accommodate the inclusion of
local advertiser’s logos or information or local Valpak
mailing-date information. For the national print campaign,
Valpak ads were run in a selection of women’s
aspirational magazines including Martha Stewart Living
and Oprah as well as service publications such as
Woman’s Day, Redbook, and Good Housekeeping.
The “Loves” campaign has been successful in improving
both consumer and advertiser perceptions of the
quality associated with the Valpak brand and the contents
of the blue envelope. Valpak has always been perceived
as the best, as well as the best known, of all the
cooperative direct-mail marketing vehicles. The repositioning
campaign has helped Cox attract a number of
high-profile, national advertisers as promotional partners,
including 20th Century Fox Studios, CBS, H&R
Block, and Burger King. It has also been successful in
getting consumers to think twice before tossing out the
ubiquitous blue envelopes that appear in their mailboxes.
They know there truly is “something in it” for
them.
Source: Melissa Fisher, vice president of marketing and communication,
Cox Target Media.