ROyal Mail
Making a delivery business the identity protection authority
Brand Strategy
How do you shake people out of identity protection apathy and make them see Royal Mail as their protective partner?
Make identity feel like a valuable possession and create an authoritative destination of guidance and advice.
The background
In 2016 Royal Mail made a business decision to begin the development of a suite of identity protection products that would be launched in the coming years.
The problem
They faced two problems, the first being that whilst there was consumer need for identity protection services (identity fraud is the fastest growing crime globally) there was no demand (consumer understanding of the category is minimal).
Secondly early research suggested that success in this required strong performance on three brand metrics. 1. Expertise in identity fraud. 2. Digital capability. 3 Trustworthiness. Unfortunately, Royal Mail didn’t perform well on the first two.
The problem therefore was a non-existent market and a lack of the characteristics needed to succeed.
The Solution
A pre-launch communications strategy aimed at establishing both the market and Royal Mail’s credibility within it.
A six-month ongoing program of activity - both editorial and communications - that would prepare the ground for the product launch.
The idea
Let’s Beat Identity Fraud
A campaigning stream of comms & editorial aimed at raising public awareness of the growing identity threat and Royal Mail’s position as the leading authority in the field.
The work
The first piece of work - The Heist - aimed to make people see their identities as something, tangible and personal in a way that jolted them out of apathy, giving them a strong sense of what needed protection.
The key insight was that your identity is now your most valuable possession.
Following The Heist we needed to begin to assert Royal Mail’s credibility in offering advice and guidance on online behaviour, we developed an identity fraud hub and comms to drive traffic.
Here the insight underpinning the work is that you wouldn’t behave in the real world, the way you do online. The series of films ‘Online You’ dramatised this insight really arrestingly.
The results
Over the 6-month market warming period the addressable market (those open to the idea of an identity protection service) doubled in size and our brand tracking showed strong shifts towards identity fraud expertise.
What would i do differently?
On reflection we should have worked harder to tackle the perceived lack of ‘digital capability’ at Royal Mail with more overt comms.