Swedish Posten 'Happiness' direct mail case study

Swedish Posten wanted to encourage more young people to send mail. The postal operator's research showed that young people find mail demanding to send, but they find receiving mail a very real pleasure.

The task, then, was to get friends to send each other something which could never be emailed. At the heart of the idea was a website, happinessbythemetre.com, where visitors could choose one of three kinds of candy twist and then decide how much they wanted to send.

The more special your friend, the longer the stick of licorice. Once payment was made online, the twist was packaged and mailed with a note.

After one day, 500 metres of candy had been bought and posted. And after a week 4,500 metres had been mailed.

It proved that even web-savvy youngsters could be persuaded to use mail if it allowed them to send tangible greetings to their friends.