Starcom (Publicis Media) and Sublime support DPDgroup in its European digital post-lockdown communication with a 360° Video campaign

Paris, October 14th, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted how essential delivery services are, drivers being in the frontline to deliver individuals, pharmacies, hospitals, and businesses. Following the lockdown, DPDgroup wanted to shine a light on their key contributions to European communities by launching a new communication campaign. Designed jointly by the agencies The Marketing Department & Watson Creative, Managed by Starcom and Publicis Media teams, the Video campaign was composed of an exclusive outstream campaign designed and delivered in key European markets by Sublime. The opportunity for the largest international parcel delivery network in Europe to create an engaging brand experience and to show that more than ever delivery service has emerged as essential, a human to human service.

DPDgroup is the largest parcel delivery network in Europe and handles the transport, tracking and delivery of parcels. For the post-lockdown "People delivering for People" campaign, DPDgroup wanted to show that delivery is a key service to maintain economy and social lifetime while reassuring about the respect of barrier gestures. In order to leverage its messaging to a large variety of e-shoppers’ profiles, Publicis Media, thanks to Starcom agency and its experts, briefed Sublime to design exclusive Outstream video formats for Desktop and Mobile and deliver them on a white-listed and premium European inventory. The United Kingdom, Spain and France were the three selected countries.

Video campaigns were run in each market from end of June to July 26th and thanks to a daily optimisation from Starcom teams, over performed with an average VTR of 62% for a 30seconds video length and an average viewability of 90%. As part of its 360° offer, Sublime proposed to measure the receptivity of digital audiences and understand the reactions of viewers to video assets. With an average attention of 7.6 seconds (+1.8 seconds compared to the Delivery Services benchmark), DPDgroup and its agency Publicis Media, had access to comprehensive data allowing to adapt the video media strategy and creative assets. Indeed, DPDgroup’s creatives showcasing that delivery was recognised as a helpful service during the Covid-19 crisis were very well received by the study participants. The video, tested in the UK, performed above the industry average with a score of 76/100 (versus 66/100 for Delivery Services), an excellent attention-grabber from the very first seconds (91/100 versus 69/100 for the benchmark). This emotional study defined clear lessons per targeted audiences, concluding that adapting the advertising message during this Covid-19 period allowed for more emotional engagement.

Finally, a complete study to measure the impact of the Video campaign on DPD brand was implemented in France to measure the effectiveness of the campaign on branding KPIs and to better understand DPD's positioning compared to its competitors. According to the results of the research, this campaign increased the spontaneous recognition of DPDGroup’s brand by 15 points when compared to a sample of people not exposed to the campaign, as well as an increase of 6 points in brand awareness. The DPD brand familiarity rate increased by 7 points, ranking the brand among the top 3 delivery brands with the highest level of familiarity.