2017 Winners

Yellow Pages (YP) couldn’t shake its “dusty phone book” perception amongst Canadian small-to- medium-sized business (SMB) owners looking for the right digital partner. Competing with giants like Google on SOV wasn’t viable, so the brand needed a unique and ownable “way in” to get itself onto SMB owners’ shopping list.

While digital business solution providers each offer a different range of products and services, they all compete on the same benefits: value and ease. While YP offers a comparative set of products and services, they couldn’t compete with companies who were purpose-built to deliver them.

An audit of existing brand research uncovered a nugget: what YP customers valued most went beyond its products and services. They most valued their reps. While the competition relies on automated services and how-to videos, YP has a team of over 1,000 advisors who work directly with SMB owners to help them succeed in digital.

As the brand’s most compelling point of difference, the advisors were chosen to be at the center of the campaign’s story. In order to convince SMB owners that YP digital products equal more customers, agency Leo Burnett looked beyond a traditional “push” message and put the brand in the shoes of the target. We opened a small business of our own: a Lemonade Stand.

When it came to producing and supporting it, we kept our budgets small, and only promoted it using the same YP products and services SMB owners would have access to. We designed everything from the store to the bottles, and used YP’s advisors to promote the store using YP digital products and services.

When The Lemonade Stand opened its doors, the whole neighbourhood knew – and came to buy. The collective efforts led to 1,600 products sold in the first seven days, with shoppers lined up out the door, daily. But more importantly, we exceeded all of our communication objectives, generated leads and changed perceptions of YP.

In just four short weeks, 31% of SMB owners say they are more likely to contact YP, with campaign lead generation exceeding online listing norms (and objectives). Ad impressions (just under one million) exceeded objectives by 80%, engagement rate of 7% exceeded objectives by 6 times and 46% of SMB owners now see YP as a credible supplier of digital marketing solutions (+13%)