Can you briefly introduce yourself?

I am Patrique Benes, 29 years old, marketing manager at Easytoys. Twelve years ago I started at Easytoys in logistics and during those years I grew to marketing manager. I have been a marketing manager for 5 years now and have learned a lot within the company.

What is the background of your most recent commercial?

This was our first commercial ever. In 2018 we started marketing via radio and television. Then we only used billboards with messages such as: “made possible by Easytoys”.

At the beginning of this year we made the choice to launch a TV commercial for the first time with the main goal of achieving a high conversion. At the time, we sat down with various parties and received different concepts. Of all the concepts, we chose Lukkien's because it was the most creative. The commercial, just like our brand, should not be flat and vulgar. The final call to action in the commercial was: go to our website.

How did this commercial come about, what process preceded it?

As mentioned, we sat down with many parties, had many consultations and briefings. The various parties provided concepts and Lukkien came to visit us. We had a very good brainstorm with them and looked at what best suits our brand. Ultimately we chose Lukkien because they had the most creative concept. We had indicated a budget in advance, but we chose based on the concept and then checked whether it fit the budget. This was the first time for us, so we had little feeling about this. From then on things went quickly: a lot of material was shot so that we could adjust a lot later if necessary. I was also on set myself, which was fun and educational for me.

What was the main goal you wanted to achieve with this campaign and commercial and has this been achieved?

The main goal was to increase conversion by pushing people to the website. In short: this did not work out because we made the wrong purchases. The results were not extremely bad, but certainly not worth repeating in this way. We have learned from this and will therefore be able to purchase better in the future. There was no major immediate uplift in website visits after the broadcast of our commercials. This was even higher for billboarding on TV. That says enough for us: we did not purchase properly. We learn from that, although it was an expensive lesson this way.

To what extent does this commercial fit into your communication?

At the time the commercial fit in well, but in retrospect we had made a few adjustments. For example: a cassette tape is shown which we really liked, but half of our target group may not know what a cassette tape is. We might also have made the commercial a little less sexy and a little more with a playful effect.

What is the importance of (pre-)testing commercials and other marketing communications for you and (how) do you do this?

We did not pre-test this commercial, but only did a test afterwards with commercialreview.nl. We are therefore all about trial and error marketing. This means you get wet more often, but you learn a lot from that. Of course, we do look at the level of risk when we try things untested. We now have a large and professional team of about 40 people, which means we have a lot of knowledge in-house. We don't want to test everything completely in advance, but also just try things quickly, but given that a TV commercial is quite expensive to make, a pre-test for next time would certainly not be a bad idea.

How did placing your commercial on commercialreview.nl help you?

We had not yet received much feedback from the market, only from a number of suppliers and external parties but not yet from consumers. commercialreview.nl certainly helped with that. We have received hundreds of responses to our commercial, most of which were positive. We looked at these insights and learned lessons from them.

What do you think are the biggest trends in marketing at the moment?

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest trends: especially before the crisis, these were influencers and the agencies for influencers that emerged. In addition, it has been the case for some time, but it is increasingly important that the story you tell must suit you. Younger target groups in particular see through transparent stories, which makes it important that they are real stories. Of course there are many new channels, including podcasts. In the retail industry, the future is truly augmented reality, which we are also experimenting with. We must ensure that the online shopping experience gets better every day.

Can you paint a picture of how your brand and company has grown, partly due to the corona crisis?

We were already growing considerably before the corona crisis, but because of corona people get bored quite quickly and start looking for erotic toys online. We already had a good brand awareness, so many people came to us, but you also see an uplift at other parties in the industry and as you read in several newspapers, corona has an effect on your sex life.

Who contributed to this commercial? (credits)

Draft | Lukkien – Yannick van Oort & Leon Veer

Director & DP | Sander Janssen

Focus Puller | Max la Grand

Gaffer | Romec Berendsen

Producer | Teddy Gijsbers

Prod. assist | Busra Bayraktaroglu

Story Editor | Sven Jansen

Online Editor | Raymond Viveen

Composer: Taco Brugma

Sound | Eric van Horssen

Grading | Roos Veltkamp