TDA New Year's Resolution direct mail case study

New Year resolutions are doomed to fail – fact. That’s why the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) timed its teacher recruitment campaign to hit doormats early in the year, just as people were breaking their resolutions.

The target audience had already expressed an interest in teaching and the aim of the mailing was to encourage attendance at Train to Teach events and boost applications for teacher training courses. Agency DraftFCB London came up with a multi-sensory piece of mail that was hard to ignore: a box on their doormat marked ‘Fragile. Open with care’ and the sound of smashing glass when it was moved.

On opening the box, the provocative message inside reads: ‘By this time of year, most resolutions have been broken. Do something meaningful in 2009.Turn your talent to teaching.’

As well as being a smart piece of creative, it achieved an impressive response rate. Weekly applications
from the target audience rose from 57.8% to 85.6%, while a follow-up email to non-responders led to an uplift of 18.85%.