PAYPAL 'PYPL' LISTING DAY MAILER

In the summer of 2015, PayPal separated from eBay to become their own publicly-traded company. We were tasked with informing the media of PayPal’s IPO offering and leaving them feeling optimistic and excited about the company’s future. A key challenge is that business and financial reporters are unable to receive promotional material, so we needed to walk a fine line between creating something eye catching that would be more intriguing than the traditional pitches they get mailed, but not special enough that it would appear to be a gift.

This activation allowed for a global conversation to be had about this critical milestone for PayPal. Almost all of the 12 combined interviews that executives participated in at Nasdaq were initiated following the media drop. The media drop allowed for 60+ Media interviews and 6.7B Impressions from July 17-20 2015.

The Mailer

Reporters were sent a custom, foil-stamped box. The message reads “Here’s to the future” to evoke a sense of anticipation and excitement about PayPal’s future. We chose not to brand the outside of the box to pique curiosity and tease journalists into opening the box.

structure of the mailer

Upon opening the box, reporters were greeted with a custom pull-tab perforated mailer with the PYPL ticker foil-stamped in white. The navy color on the exterior of the mailer paid homage to the color eBay and PayPal shared, while a hint of PayPal’s unique bright blue showed through on the interior. We thoughtfully designed the mailer requiring the recipient to physically pull the tab and split the announcement open to reflect PayPal’s split from eBay.

USB drive

Inside the announcement, we included a business card-sized USB drive complete with all the information journalists needed to report on the PayPal IPO. We designed the USB drive to include the PYPL logo and thought-provoking message “What does the future of money look like?”. Since there was no other copy on the mailer, we again wanted to tease them further into plugging the USB into their computers to read about the PayPal separation. The original PayPal logo marked the back side of the USB drive.

hidden surprise

As a little surprise and delight, the PYPL URL is printed below the USB drive as another way for the reporters to learn more.

CREDITS

Agency: Edelman

Role: Senior Designer

Team: Tony Johnson, Associate Creative Director