Welcome Guide

The FCC mandated that all new cellular phone customers receive certain information about the laws governing “radio telephony.” For example, did you know that it’s illegal to use profanity while talking on a cellular phone? This and other pieces of governmental regulation were bundled together with useful information (such as how to use your phone, how to read your bill and what to do if you have questions) into a “Welcome Guide” that was given to all new customers.

Working on the collateral budget for the first time, the costs for one of the pieces struck me as odd. Every other piece in the library cost between 9-cents and 26-cents each. The “Welcome Guide” cost $1.42 each. I reviewed all the print and production specifics for thie piece and came up with some suggested changes. I then had our ad agency, who designed all our collateral at that time, work up an alternate demo for me to run past my VP.

"Which of these is better?" I asked, handing him the two versions. He looked at them both for a minute and then said, "This one… the one with the tabs."

"I agree," I said. "But is it $1 million better?"

I believe his exact response was, "Say again?"

I replied, "Based on forecasts, we'll burn through a million of these next year. Die-cut tabs means we have to spiral bind. Lose the tabs, we can staple bind and…"

"And we save a-million bucks. That's folding money. Do it. Good work."

The final piece ended up saving even more money than that, as we actually added 1.2 million customers that year.