An Atlanta marketing firm drew rave reviews from fashionistas for its personalized direct mailer

By: Lekan Oguntoyinbo

Two years ago, Grizzard Performance Group set out to take the New York-centric U.S. fashion industry by storm from Atlanta.

Of course, when they made the decision to go after business within the wholesale and retail apparel industry, executives at the southern-based marketing firm knew it would be a challenge. For starters, they were going against competitors who had a track record of working with some of the fashion world’s most venerable giants. And then there was the small matter of geography: Atlanta is not exactly at the epicenter of the retail apparel industry, and location carries much currency in that business.

“There’s a kind of parochialism attributable to different parts of the country,” says Douglas Broward, creative director of the Grizzard Performance Group and the campaign’s quarterback. “Being from the South, we had to work aggressively. Markets in places like New York are trend-setting as opposed to trend-reflecting. It was definitely uphill.”

Uphill but not unattainable, he figured. Grizzard had just come off a lengthy relationship with one of its biggest clients, so there was a lot riding on this. Broward and three colleagues set about developing a campaign that would magnetize a significant segment of their target audience. Four months of painstaking work led to the birth of Volume ONE, a campaign that consisted of a two-step mailing to approximately 50 potential clients.

The first step included sending out a low-cost poster that alerted the prospects that a second, more substantive mailing was on its way. Grizzard also developed a URL that was specific to the campaign and contained a registration form and a flash show. But it was the second mailing a lavish red, quarter-inch-thick, 16-by 22-inch book with a floral design embossed in the thin metal foil stamped on the book’s cover that got people talking and calling. The books, which each cost between $500 and $600 to develop, also came complete with a customized music CD and a specific URL, thisisvolume.com.

In the middle of the book was a 22-by 64-inch centerfold of a work table strewn with photos. The books, which were wholly designed and partially created in-house, arrived in highly personalized, hand-painted boxes. The CD had a musical accompaniment to each passage in the book. Each of the songs referenced the passage in song lyrics or title.