Beck Keller AG

Catching customers with croissants

Successful companies grow their customer base regularly. Swiss Post helps them to do this with ideas and expertise in direct marketing, as was the case with Beck Keller AG, which attracted many new customers with a special offer on croissants.

Working on behalf of Beck Keller AG, Swiss Post delivered 42,000 empty croissant bags labelled “4 croissants for only 2 francs!” to letter boxes around the company's 15 sales outlets in the Zurich region. They had hardly been delivered before things took off: the customers were queuing up at the bakery with their croissant bags, even spilling out into the street at the weekend.

A complete success

Almost 4,000 people took advantage of the offer. A remarkable response considering that nothing was on offer for free. Marketing Manager Jean-Jacques Keller recalls: “For two months after the mailing, new customers were still coming with their empty bags.” Apart from the eye-catching unaddressed mailing, a core element of the campaign was the definition of the target group. Geographically, it was deliberately kept fairly local. This meant that there was little wastage, which made the campaign an economic success.

Expert advice from Swiss Post

The idea for the croissant bags came from Swiss Post's direct marketing consultant. He designed the campaign working together with Beck Keller AG. Beck Keller AG benefited from the expertise available at Swiss Post and provided the capacities required for implementation.

Offer extended in the second round

Some time later, Beck Keller got back to Swiss Post, looking to build on the success of the croissant promotion. In the second campaign, there were four croissants along with the daily or Sunday newspaper, all for a total of three francs. The offer was again printed on the croissant bags and distributed in the neighbourhoods around the sales outlets. Posters advertising the bakery were also put up in these areas, reinforcing the impact of the mailing. Swiss Post helped not only with the design of the bags, but also made contact with the newspaper partner Tamedia and coordinated the mailing and poster campaign.

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