We’re pleased to announce that Adrian Rowe will become Chairman with immediate effect, leaving Creative Director and Deputy MD, Julian Gratton to take on the full time role of Managing Director of the business.

Adrian Rowe has lived and breathed direct marketing for nearly 30 years, carving out a career first in the home shopping sector with spells at Empire Stores, Next and Great Universal Stores.  After moving agency side in 1991 with Interpublic agency SBW, he helped to found Red C (formerly RSCR) in 1994. His contribution to the industry was recognised in 2001, when he was made an Honorary Life Fellow of the IDM.

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We’ve cracked open the champagne again today at Red C towers after learning that we’ve been nominated for the 2010 DMA Awards for our triggered email marketing campaign for Swinton Insurance. Our campaign uses timely and relevant triggered emails to talk to and engage with our customers and prospects throughout the year and has delivered some impressive results for Swinton.

The triggered campaign was created to engage with an audience of 1.3 million throughout the 11 months of the year when their core insurance wasn’t due for renewal and deliver a new online lead source in an increasingly competitive and crowded marketplace. Ultimately we wanted to drive quotes through the Swinton site but to also ensure that brand engagement was maintained every month through a consistently high open rate, low unsubscribe rate and a low cost per quote.

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It’s no big secret that I’m a bad loser. I hold my hands up and fully accept that my inability to be gracious in defeat is one of my weak points. Yet it is also a strong point too… as it drives me, pushes me harder and makes me ensure I have explored every opportunity for my clients. Simply because I want to create something special that will not only exceed the goals set in the brief… but also deliver some awards because the strategy is sound, it looks damned good, is incredibly well written and has pulled like a freight train.

For me, winning is key to a passionate, productive, purposeful, and prosperous life. If I were to value it less than I do, then I fear I would begin to say goodbye to my talents as a creative. The will to win is what drives me to be the best I can be in everything I do… and I have seen first hand what a winning mentality can do to an agency.

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We’re extremely proud of our work on the Swinton Mystery Tipper, especially as it has garnered the agency an armful of awards from two DMA Awards to two ISP Awards and two IPA Effectiveness Awards. We’ve had quite a few people ask to see our winning entry form… so here it is!

CONTEXT AND MARKET BACKGROUND

The insurance sector is a complex and increasingly challenging marketplace. For most of us, insurance has always been a distress purchase – something we grudgingly concede we need to have, and resent the increasing premiums. Three key innovations in the last decade have had a significant impact on the broader market. The launch of Direct Line’s online insurance offer, in 1999, following the formula of its breakthrough approach to offering insurance by telephone a decade earlier, forced every insurer and broker to reassess their approach – here was a company that made buying insurance simple and fuss-free, cutting out the middle man and talking everyday language. This sparked an extended period of discounting in the sector that still has ramifications today.

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As the end of year approaches everyone takes the opportunity to look back before we look forward into 2009. So I thought I’d take some time to highlight several key achievements made by Red C this year in the world of Direct Marketing and Advertising. Here’s just five reasons why this has been a vintage year for Red C.

1. An award winning direct marketing and advertising agency

This year Red C achieved something that we have never done before. We became finalists at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Awards in two categories. An achievement not matched by any other Direct Marketing or Advertising agency outside of London this year.

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Our ‘Under the skin’ approach led us to understand Taxi drivers. That they are hard-working, hard-done-by, no nonsense characters. Getting their business can be tough, but once you’ve got it they can help you multiply it by word of mouth.

So when Swinton’s Taxi division came to us to ceate a promotion to drive enquiries for Taxi insurance… we knew we needed to create something special. Enter The Swinton Mystery Tipper. The campaign uses trade press, DM, flyers and shout outs on local radio to get the word out about a mysterious woman tipping cabbies a grand in different UK cities throughout 2008. No skill required, just a sticker. And to get a sticker, you have to get a quote. Easy, effective and successful, the Mystery Tipper’s appeal is its simplicity. It’s made a good few cabbies a grand richer and has given Swinton Taxi Division record results. Read more…

Red C’s Mystery Tipper Campaign for Swinton Taxi Division is a finalist at this year’s DMA Awards. The campaign which has had thousands of taxi drivers clambering for a quote is nominated in the Financial Services and Customer Acquisition categories.

Work that wins a DMA Award has also won customers. That’s what makes the DMAs stand apart from other awards.

With brilliant strategic thought and creative ideas acting as the drivers to achieve outstanding results it’s no wonder that the DMAs are highly regarded by clients and agencies.

Thanks to the Swinton Mystery Tipper campaign’s staggering results and exciting concept, the Red C creative team are guaranteed glory.