A few years ago our Mystery Tipper picked up an array of marketing awards… and after a couple of years of continuing to deliver some impressive results for Swinton’s Taxi Division she has been nominated by the lovely people at the DMA Awards in the category of ‘Best business performance or improvement’. Needless to say we’re all really chuffed here at Red C towers and have already begun polishing those shoes and ironing those gowns for the award-ceremony!

The Direct Marketing Association Awards don’t just reward great looking creative. They reward excellence in results and delivering business performance through insightful, inventive and innovative marketing strategies that feed into great looking creative that then go on to deliver stunning results for clients.

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I like words. They happify me. In fact, they make me tripudiate with joy. I’m one of those people who take far more pleasure in hearing about a crepuscular splodge than actually seeing one; and would much rather read about a spelunking scrimshanker than go and cheer him on. I get a kick out of the English language and, at the risk of being philodoxical, I think everybody should. Language may be fundamentally a means of communication, in the way that food is fundamentally a means of nutrition, but both offer pleasure far beyond their function. Words should be savoured like a sumptuous steak.

Of course, when I try to convince my chums about the myriad delights of mellifluous language, they call me a ponce. Well, until a few weeks back. All of a sudden, they’re casually dropping obscure words into every conversation. It’s frippet this and proprioception that. And while I love to think it’s down to my strategic nagging, I’m afraid it isn’t. They still think I’m a ponce. But they’ve become huge fans of this website called Wordle. Read more…

The Swinton Mystery Tipper campaign created by Red C picked up two awards at the prestigious DMA Awards 2008, winning gold in the Financial Services category and silver for Customer Acquisition. Arguably the most esteemed event on the award’s calendar, this is an excellent result for what has been a hugely successful campaign for Red C and Swinton Taxi Division.

Red C is the only agency outside of London to win at the 2008 awards, picking up two awards shows the endearing success of this imaginative campaign, which already won at the B2B Marketing awards. The DMA Awards are the biggest and best in the Direct Marketing industry, attracting approximately 1,000 entries each year. There are 33 categories reflecting each sector of the direct marketing arena. Campaigns are judged on strategy, creativity and results and each category has 3 winners, collecting Gold, Silver and Bronze.

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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…