When REEP was launched recently, it had 60 000 hits on the first weekend. REEP is a new website that allows users to find the true value of any property in South Africa.
Parent company Cerno has briefed in advertising agency Wunderman to launch the site and Matthew Kretzschmar, Creative Director of Wunderman SA, says the site is a first-to-market service: "The challenges we faced were creating awareness of a new category service and of the REEP brand itself. As no one was offering such a service we had no real competitors to research, and at the same time we had to create a need that the market didn't really know it had."
The new product needed simple creative that any homeowner could understand instantly: "While watching a building going up in our office park, we noticed the piles of bricks and the concept came to us: a direct mailer consisting of a wooden crate containing a brick, with the message, 'In suburb A it's worth X, in suburb B it's worth Y, in suburb c it's worth Z - how much is your pile of bricks worth?'
"A beautifully packaged brick is unexpected and unique, and yet gets right down to the essence of the service. We then extended the brick concept to all other elements."
Kretzschmar says the campaign launched with direct mail, banners, print and radio. By the first weekend the website had 60 000 hits: "We managed, incredibly, to take the hit rate from zero to 60 000 with the launch of our campaign. The direct mail piece had an exceptional success rate with 70% of recipients logging on."
