Snapfish Hopes BRM Campaign Will Click With Consumers
"The purpose of running a campaign in this fashion is to place free film processing in the hands of consumers where they are taking their photographs," said Melissa Barritt Felder, vice president of consumer marketing at Snapfish, San Francisco. "If we can get in front of them at the moment they are taking pictures, we believe they will be more likely to embrace and use us."
Snapfish has entered into marketing agreements with several companies, including Delta Express, Certified Folder Display Service, MapWest, PictureMark, Primedia and Silversand as well as four international tour operators -- Kingdom Vacations, Tropical Adventures, Dive Tours and Adventure Express.
The logistics of the program will vary from partner to partner. But in each case the program will revolve around a business reply mailer that will either be handed directly to consumers or made available to them through certain locations and magazines.
The BRMs will contain "simple steps on who we are, how we work and how to utilize the service."
They will direct consumers to visit the Web site, where they can sign up and become registered users of the service. The BRM will allow consumers to place either rolls of 35mm film or one-time-use cameras inside them to be mailed to Snapfish. Consumers will have to agree to register and become members of Snapfish before sending their film.
"Aside from using the BRMs to get their film developed, the text will allow consumers to learn more about us and how to utilize our service," Felder said. "We needed to make the text simple because we don't know how familiar everyone is with taking pictures and online photo development."
According to Felder, some of the partners may be placing their logos on the BRMs, but none will use the mailers to promote special offers of their own.
Consumers will only have to pay for the shipping of the prints and negatives. Snapfish will create a password-protected online photo album for users. Snapfish makes its money through the ordering of reprints from the online photo albums as well as through advertising on its site.
The program will be launched during the next three months. Snapfish hopes to have the BRMs distributed and available at more than 25,000 locations by year-end. Felder said the company plans to put more than 100 million mailers in circulation by the end of the year and hopes to place them in the hands of more than 1 million consumers.
Methods of distribution will vary.
On Delta Express flights going to Orlando, FL, flight attendants will give a brief informational talk on Snapfish and the BRM, and passengers will be able to request one.
More than 50 million BRMs will be distributed in magazines such as American Baby, Modern Bride and Shutterbug starting in mid-November and continuing into next year through Primedia, which also will give out more than 20 million mailers in sampler packages delivered directly to new parents at hospital maternity wards.
Felder said it cost less than $1 million to put the entire campaign together.
"This will be cheaper than running a regular direct mail campaign because of how extremely targeted it is and the likelihood of a high response rate," Felder said.
Snapfish worked with ad agency Rattje Chadwick, San Francisco, on the campaign.