“118 218 skiing ”
118 218 is a French professional directory where you can find all the information of professionals you need: address, telephone, man and itinerary.
It launched an innovating 30-million euro (42 million dollar) campaign in 2005, which rapidly made it the number one of the directories information. Indeed, the campaign was very efficient since 118 218 reached in a short period 40% of the market shares with 70 millions calls per year.
This is mainly due to one man, Laurent Foisset, the marketing director who arrived that same year in the company. He’s main objective was to find a way so that people could remember very easily the number, so he bet on a very different campaign full of humor. He wanted to make the campaign entertaining more than an informative. So he created 2 characters and music: the brand’s code.
But the most important part was to assure the quality of the service after this campaign. The satisfaction rate was of 90%. This demonstrate that the company was able to first launch an innovating campaign, with big success, and that is was also able to reply to the new demands that arrived: a key point to maintain sustainability on the market.
When I first saw this campaign, it was on TV, and it was on so many times a day, that I first thought, this is such an annoying campaign, the two guys look so dumb, the music is awful, what an horrible commercial! Is that all they can come up with?!
Though, once I need to call the directory information on my phone because I was lost and needed to know where a specific store was located, and the only number that I could think of was theirs: 118 218! And that is when I realized that their marketing strategy was very ingenious and that it was the best way I could think of, to make customers remember your number! Since their first campaign, they have come up with many different commercials, all very funny, using the same music that sticks in your head after viewing it. Here is an example of one of my favorites, it is called “The Summer’s Rescuers”:
