The most prestigious newspaper in the Spanish-speaking world is transmitted electronically from Madrid and printed and distributed in Argentina daily. The challenge: to establish relationships with 60 principal hotels in Buenos Aires who receive guests from Spain.

El País’ General Manager in Argentina wanted to meet with the hotels’ general managers personally, to suggest offering the paper to their Spanish guests, but also to get to know them, as eventual future advertisers. So, we sent a Door Opener mailing.The emblematic front-desk bell was encased in an unusual unfolding box, covered with clever phrases related to the hotel business. The bell was a reminder that hotels have to “respond” to their guests’ needs.Each contact was followed up by phone calls to schedule an appointment.

Appointments were obtained with an incredible 75% of managers contacted. However - and despite the soft sell approach - on the average, the hotels visited bought one subscription each to El País. The campaign has a total cost of $US1,500. The annual revenues from subscriptions sold was over $US14,000. A very positive ROI: over 900%.