Dougie Mac Mailer

Dougie Mac are a local hospice who provide care for adults, young adults and children who are suffering from life-limiting illnesses. Additionally, they offer supportive care to their families and carers. They have been caring for Stoke-on-Trent and the surrounding areas since 1973 and recently celebrated their 50^th year.

The team at Dougie Mac identified a number of myths which surrounded their business and wanted to create an educational direct mail piece that would help to improve the local area’s knowledge of the hospice and the work that they do. The mailer was to be delivered to 250,000 households in Dougie Mac’s catchment area.

Dougie Mac approached Harrison Carloss to create an eye-catching and engaging direct mail concept that would bust misconceptions about the hospice and educate recipients about auxiliary services that they offer. The mailer needed to be eye-catching, enticing homeowners to open it and the hospice also wanted it to look completely different to other communications coming from Dougie Mac.

Creativity from the start

We held an initial briefing meeting with the team at Dougie Mac to truly get to grips with the purpose of the mailer and what they wanted to achieve from its delivery. After an internal creative brainstorm, we commenced the project with two distinct ideas which were presented to the client as sketched scamps.

The concepts were further developed after internal feedback and colour schemes proposed to help distinguish this piece from anything else from Dougie Mac. Scamping creative concepts at this early stage also allowed us to have more creativity earlier on in the process without fleshing out fully established ideas.

After presenting two concepts to the team at the hospice, they decided to merge a number of their favourite elements to create a hybrid design. This was then mocked up for final approval from the client before going back in the studio for design and refinement.

Mail with meaning

The result was a fully developed direct mail piece with creative elements taking inspiration from the local area, these included pot banks and ducks to pay homage to the Stoke on Trent heritage which ensured the most potential impact when landing with the recipient. The piece celebrated Dougie Mac’s 50 years in operation and acted as a thank you for the support of the local people over the years.

Copy was kept minimal for easy and accessible reading and the bright and colourful design appealed to all ages. The incorporation of a full spread timeline meant the mailer could be kept and displayed as a poster where needed including GP surgeries or in the home.

The myth-busting back page directly addressed a number of the misconceptions held about the hospice with a survey to be completed later this year as a follow up to the success of the campaign.