We Can’t Name Names
The problem.
Umbrellas on the Beach does great work, but can’t show it because of agreements with their clients. That makes new business very difficult. It’s hard to reach out to someone and say “Hey, we’re awesome but you’ll have to take our word for it because we can’t tell you who our clients are and we can’t show you any work. Just trust us with your projects and money.” And that’s when you can get the conversation going with them. For someone just passively looking at agency websites and comparing them, it’s even harder to get that first point of contact when you can’t show them work they can relate to. And without leads coming into the funnel, it leads to exponentially more stress and less security for you as the leader of the company.
So what can you do?
How can you get someone to reach out and start the conversation? You have to be disruptive and grab their attention. You have to find a way for them to want to reach out to you to learn more without telling them anything up front. Every agency website talks about their experience, wonderful team, how they’re partners who clients can rely on. That’s not going to get many clients in the doors. You have to do something different.
We Can’t Name Names.
We Can’t Name Names is a campaign idea for an agency. It says nothing. But in saying nothing, it compels the viewer to want to know more. It’s fun and disruptive in a feed of ads and regular cold emails and calls. It’s a way to creatively share what you do, without actually showing what you do. The campaign shows out of the box creative thinking, which in turn shares enough with a potential lead that you know what you’re doing, but compels them to reach out to learn exactly what it is you do.
We Can’t Name Names is a multi-part campaign featuring a unique direct mail piece for key targets, a video for cold emails/ad buys, and a microsite to capture leads information in order to set up in person conversations.
Here’s an example of what the video could be like…
This is just a rough example to show what the video could be like. I used stock footage, AI generated voiceover, testimonials from the UOTB website, and some writing I did.
The campaign.
The Video
The video would be similar to the one above. We would create that in conjunction with the UOTB team. I’d suggest using internal talent for voice over since we’re altering it anyways. And using stock footage for the imagery to keep with the mystery of everything. We could also shoot it if you wanted and update the estimate below.
The Video Mailer
This is a unique direct mail piece that would be sent to 10 key targets. It’s a mailer that has a built in video screen/player. When the person opens it up, the video autoplays. UOTB would handle the design and we would source/load the video boxes. We can handle the design as well for an additional cost.
The Landing Page
This is where the URL leads to. We own WeCantNameNames.com because we were going to do this campaign for AV Collective, but I think it’s a better fit for Umbrellas which is why I was sharing it. UOTB would be responsible for designing the landing page and the URL would be included in the creative concept cost below.
The page should be VERY simple. The video playing on a loop, and a pop up to schedule a call. Keep the mystery up until they talk to you in person.
Cold Emails / Ad Buy
This would be up to you on how to handle it, but my suggestion would be targeting 10 people with the initial round of video boxes and then using the landing page to send cold emails to people, not from UOTB just from We Can’t Name Names. Additionally I’d recommend a targeted ad spend on Linked In with the video.
The costs.
The below numbers are rough and I can put together a detailed estimate for you if you like the idea and want to move forward. These numbers are assuming we’d work together on the parts of the project (called out below). If you just said “love the idea, we want to do it in house” that works too and it would just be the creative concept cost.
Creative Concept - $5,000
This covers the idea and the URL. We spent a lot of time coming up with the plan and working on details for it and that’s all included here. If you just wanted to take the idea and run with it internally, this would be the only cost. If you wanted to partner on the assets (obviously our recommendation) then it would be this plus costs below.
Video Editing - $3,500
We’ll take the stock assets and UOTB provided VO and put together the video.
Stock Video / Music - $500
An estimated cost for stock assets and music.
Videobox Design - UOTB
You guys would handle the design work on the Videoboxes. If you wanted us to handle everything I can put together a cost for that.
The Landing Page Creation/Hosting - UOTB
You guys would handle the landing page design, creation, hosting, all that jazz for the site. We’d transfer you the URL in the Creative Concept fee above and you’d handle the rest of the site.
The Videoboxes - $2000
We’ve done extensive research, tested screens and looked at a lot of samples to identify what we think are the best Videobox mailers on the market.
This would include the 10 boxes themselves with printed graphics, loading them up with the video and testing them, and putting them into mailers for you to slap a label on and mail out.
The Email Campaign - UOTB
Internally, you’d create the email campaign, manage it, and send it out. Again, we could do this if you wanted I’d just need to get costs together for it.
The Ad Buy - Up to you
We’re not digital ad specialists and don’t claim to be. You could invest $100 in this or $10,000, that’s up to you.
Total - $11,000 plus UOTB employee time
The ROI and next steps
I think this is a great, disruptive concept that will generate leads that otherwise wouldn’t come through the door. If you’re interested, let me know and we can talk through next steps. If you’re not interested, no worries. We were thinking about putting this to use for AV Collective when I thought about our call a few months back and I wanted to share it with you first.
