Open turns candy cables into a sweet global campaign for Habia Cable.

Company anniversaries come and go, but when you turn 75, you naturally want to do something special – especially for your loyal customers. Still, apart from a nice event, what can you do to build goodwill and promote a dialogue with brand enthusiasts?

This was the challenge facing Habia Cable, a leading Swedish manufacturer of custom-designed cables that had just launched a new corporate website and wanted to celebrate its 75th Anniversary. “We saw a wonderful opportunity to use this occasion to build our brand, create greater awareness around our product offering and new website,” says Lina Mehlqvist, Marketing Communications Manager at Habia Cable.

International focus
Habia turned to Open Communications, the Stockholm-based international brand communications agency, to come up with a strategy and ideas that would work across borders in different channels (95% of Habia’s customers are outside of Sweden). And as is often the case these days, it had to be done nimbly and quickly.

Two main goals
There were two main goals, according to Gunilla Lundström, CEO, Partner and Account Director at Open. First, the company wanted to drive traffic among existing customers to the new website www.habia.com where they could discover more. Secondly, they wanted to create greater awareness about the breadth and depth of their offering for custom-designed cables and harness systems.

“Habia prides itself on offering customized cables, so we thought, why not dramatize the benefits of this service,” says Håkan Fagsterstedt, Creative Director at Open. “Their cables are bright and colorful, much like long chewy candies, so we saw a distinct relevance here – not to mention the ability to customize to their own specifications.”

A surprisingly sweet solution
The surprising solution that emerged was at once playful with a glint-in-the-eye emotional touch. It drew upon the fact that most of Habia’s cables have unique properties to withstand extreme temperatures and chemicals, be highly bendable and more – a perfect metaphor and bridge into world of confectionary.

In a series of online and physical mailings, customers were invited to go into a section of Habia’s website and create their own anniversary cables in different layers of chewy candy. Much like an actual cable, for example, they could select the outer jacket flavor and then add a core of fresh apple, delicious strawberry and other mouth-watering flavors.

Exceeded the goals
“We were overwhelmed by the positive response,” says Lina Mehlqvist. “We exceeded our goals and the direct mailings - both physical boxes and via email - led to around 220 orders with customer creating their own candy cables as well as a 20% increase in site traffic. Not only did email open rates exceed 50% in some countries, but we also saw a rise in interest for real custom-designed cables.”

Daring to be different pays off
“Habia deserves a lot of credit for daring to go with a brave, forward-thinking approach in a rather conservative industry,” says David Gray, Founder of Open. “Our suggestion was progressive, with plenty of attitude, involving a combination of customer co-creation, interactive features, direct marketing, web, event and social media. So it’s great to see that thinking differently and embracing the power of creativity really pays off in the end.”

About Habia Cable
Habia Cable is one of Europe's leading wire and cable manufacturers. We develop, manufacture and market custom-designed cables and harness systems for demanding applications in a number of diverse industries – telecom, defence, offshore and other industrial sectors. Today Habia has a global presence with approximately 600 employees and worldwide sales in more than 50 countries.