±±¾©Èü³µpk10

And yet even if the best research has been used, the best production values obeyed and with a limitless budget, the fine line between success and failure is still as unpredictable today as it has always been. Work may well be designed to shock - think United Colours of Benetton in the late 1990s - or even deliberately set out to be cheesy - think the current batch of esure ads - but no-one purposely sets out to produce a turkey.

In ATL circles, the black sheep in the flock are paraded in various guises, with Marketing's 'Worst Ads of the Year' always an anticipated read.

But what about those pieces of direct marketing that the agencies wish had never seen the light of day?

In direct marketing, of course, failure is a word that's only used alongside 'testing' as a way of achieving greater success. However, that's not to say agencies don't have skeletons in the cupboard that even they are embarrassed to reveal.

Well, almost. We've persuaded five brave agency creatives to spill the beans on some of the work that definitely won't be in their portfolio.

They sample these alongside some of the best they've ever done to show just how, and how not to tackle some briefs.

There are some wise lessons to be learned. Look, read and enjoy - and then promise yourself you won't repeat the same mistakes.

PAUL TULLO, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, TULLO MARSHALL WARREN

THE BEST

We do a lot of good work for Guinness and we're hugely proud of it. I've picked this summer campaign because even though it isn't the most successful one we've ever done, it overcame a huge problem - creating the action of drinking Guinness in the summer.

Persuading people that Guinness was a summer drink was part of the launch of Guinness Cold. We used the Thirstometer idea, with the humorous take on the idea of the British summer and how you could link temperature to drinking a pint.

There was all the standard data-capture, but we also linked it to an online campaign, and best of all, whenever the temperature went above 20 degrees, we sent emails out to the database, saying it was the perfect temperature for a Guinness. We timed the mailer to drop on warm Friday evenings, and the pack only cost 55p compared with the normal £1 pack cost. There were no coupons, but research found that 50 per cent had showed it to other people. It had a very low junk perception.

THE WORST

I had to rack my brain a bit here - but then the 'Pink Poodle' came back to haunt me!

This was part of a long-term CRM campaign for O2, which is hugely sophisticated in its personalisation of mailers. It was part of the best-tariff plan advice mailings, where it logs your calls and then personalises each mailer by recommending that if you changed your plan, you could well save more money.

At the time, BT Cellnet was changing to O2, and we were trying to understand the new branding. Its brand team presented the brand values as being edgy and we understood that they wanted to be very different. The poodle was the creative we really pushed - that in a quirky way, the savings you make could get you a new haircut. Bang on brand, we thought.

As it was being sent out though, the mailer went to one of O2's senior executives, who phoned the marketing director, gave him a grilling, and then we were called and got a grilling. This was the start of a really hard time between us and 02 - the company just hated the mailer and it affected every other mailing we did for it. Everything that we did for it afterwards had no real edge, as we drifted back into corporate safety.

In the long-term, 02 chose another agency and while this mailer wasn't the sole reason, I've no doubt it was the catalyst. We now call our own excellence in creativity awards the Pink Poodle Awards because the work we did afterwards was never the same. The lesson here is that you can be au fait with an organisation, but you really have to know the paradigm of the brand in large corporations. The irony was that the mailer actually did quite well!

MARK PEARSON, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, TDA

THE BEST

Always an innovative firm, Iceland introduced the first national grocery home delivery service and briefed us to work on the launch.

We piloted a DRTV campaign in two UK regions, and a 60-second TV slot targeting the elderly is one of my favourite pieces of direct marketing.

The scenario involved the repeated attempts of an old lady to catch a bus into town to go shopping. We had just one day to shoot the commercial and had found the perfect location. The day of the shoot was foggy so a lot of our scenic views literally disappeared. And then it rained and rained.

But as we filmed, we knew that the miserable conditions worked in our favour, adding all-important extra emphasis. It was also witty, concise, with a clear proposition, and directed and edited with a marvellous soundtrack.

All of the important elements really clicked together.

This was just one part of a multi-segmented and multimedia launch that beat all targets and led to a successful national rollout (and a National Retail award into the bargain). Not only that, but our soaked-through team dried off by basking in the glory of a Roses award.

THE WORST

One of our early clients was an office supplier called Muromail, selling a variety of weird, wonderful and seemingly essential products. On one occasion our mission was to sell the 'Vynarac', a tray system that could be stacked to increase its size and capacity. And for extra ease, the whole unit was mounted on wheels.

On delving deeper to unearth a genuine product insight, we discovered that the item was the product of a Far East shopping trip and allegedly did not fit European standard file sizes. Undeterred, we created a press ad with the immortal headline 'Good golly big trolley, (you sure like to roll)'.

As if this wasn't enough, we opted for a retina-searing colour palette and a tabloid layout that had all the ingredients of a small space classic.

Why did it fail? Of course, it must have been down to the product - after all, it certainly couldn't have been the creative - could it?

NICK THOMAS, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, TARGET DIRECT

THE BEST

I'm selecting works we did for the same client - Help the Aged - as examples of how you can get things really right, but also really wrong if you rely on the same formula.

Our best piece is our 'Feet' mailing, launched in October 1999. Our aim was to create uplift for our annual recruitment campaign focusing on the needs of the elderly.

It would involve door drops, posters and direct mail. We came up with the shocking image of a row of hospital morgue-tagged feet, saying that 21,000 OAPs die each year because of the cold.

We ran the ad on press vans, outside Help the Aged's HQ and with two full-page press ads. The Times and The Daily Telegraph banned them - which was great press - while The Guardian and The Independent ran them.

We also sent a shoebox containing a pair of shoes to TV and radio stations, using the idea that a dead old person won't be needing them anymore. It worked because we struck lucky. It was a slow news day and the strong creative was picked up practically everywhere, starting with the breakfast news through to the evening. It was independently calculated to have generated £3m of spend and there was a massive uplift in our DM response.

We didn't aim to get banned, but it gave the campaign more edge. This sort of approach works well, but you only get one shot at it ...

THE WORST

- which brings me to the worst. Because that year had been so good, we decided to try it again. It was also for the DM Christmas pack and the theme would be the loneliness of this period. We had wanted to run on a story about how an elderly person had died and not been discovered until months later to really reinforce this, but Help the Aged that decided this would be too shocking. It opted to water it down and go with the feeling trapped route. We weren't sure, as you can sometimes feel trapped in your home even when you're young.

We were proved right. The result (below) was too abstract and didn't have a clear 'what do we do about it factor?'. We sent stuff to radio and TV - this time a cake with a file on the top - but the Hatfield rail crash happened the day after. We only got about two mentions and these were only from the regional press.

The lesson here is that you need a strong proposition for cut-through.

The DM did OK, but there was no uplift. TTL work can succeed, but if done wrong it is a waste of money.

BARNEY COCKERELL, CREATIVE PARTNER, WWAV RAPP COLLINS

THE BEST

Our mail and DRTV 'All Clear' campaign is very different from our previous work for Cancer Research UK.

It's about telling someone they've got the all clear from cancer, turning around the bad experiences people may have had with the disease.

All Clear also demonstrates the charity's good work, and the phrase can be used across all media because it's easy to understand. It launched in February, but the campaign has gained high brand awareness, recently ranking number five in Marketing's Ad Watch table.

THE WORST

This was another piece for Cancer Research UK, a donation pack aimed at the cash audience. This failed because of its outer. The copy centred on the idea of there being an extra seat at the table at Christmas, which many people construed as a reference to death. The mailpack was actually about a woman who had not only beaten cancer, but had gone on to have a baby. The extra place is for the baby, but it's easy to see how it could refer to someone's death - hence the extra place at the table.

We did think this might happen, but we also thought it would be powerfully intriguing. The simple fact is that it was totally inappropriate.

The result is that in subsequent years we've used a far more positive message. Of course, this is what happens, and it's all part of testing.

TIM SYKES, PARTNER, LANGHAM WORKS

THE BEST

The campaign that stands out is the B2B work we did with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. We were brought in to work on a product in its insurance sector, to help 'open the door' into potential clients' offices so consultants could then set up meetings.

Rather than sending out a letter about a product/service, we dimensionalised the benefit of the product in our mailing.

We contacted the prospects' PAs to ask if they could find out their boss's shoe size. We attributed this to each mailing, which comprised a shoebox with one running shoe in it. Attached to the lace was a card that read 'Are you fit to compete in insurance?' with some details about the product.

The call to action was that they would get the other shoe (to keep) once they went to a meeting.

We got 29 per cent of prospects agreeing to a meeting. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young still uses this technique - a major compliment to us.

THE WORST

I can't bring myself to reveal the work in its full glory, but if I describe it, people may recall it.

It was for a charity for which its overseas appeals had always tended to be more popular to the detriment of its UK work. The conundrum was how to bridge this, and we decided to test a pack using a famous newsreader as the spokesperson for an appeal reporting about a UK and an overseas issue.

We tested a five-piece and a one-piece mailer, yet we failed to look properly at the glue we used. People just couldn't open the final mailpack without ripping it apart! It was a total nightmare, and we were really caught out.

Needless to say the response was not good. It's a great example of coming up with a good idea but not testing every element of it first.