To generate more leads and reach new users, Brazil’s GZH decided to leverage something that is both universal and extremely personal: birthdays.

As the strongest brand in Grupo RBS’ portfolio, GZH is a digital publication resulting from merging the station Rádio Gaúcha with the newspaper Zero Hora. With more than 110,000 digital subscribers, GZH has a significant presence in the country as well as a significant history.

Zero Hora dates back to 1964, which means the newspaper has a rich storehouse of historical information and images.

As it looked for new ways to appeal to audiences, the registration and engagement team realised it had thousands of covers from the daily publication and could use those covers to appeal to new users. That led to the launch of the Capas de Aniversário ZH, or ZH Birthday Cover, campaign.

Social experiment

To catch the attention of non-subscribers, the team turned to the GZH Web site and social media networks, including Facebook and Instagram.

Asking the simple question, “What was in the news in ZH the day you were born?” the campaign immediately raised user curiosity.

To find out the answer to that question, the reader had to register — which provided GZH with valuable information including the date of their birth, name, and e-mail. Once they provided that information, the user received a free cover of the Zero Hora newspaper from the day of their birth via e-mail.

In addition to appealing to non-subscribers, the campaign provided an opportunity to engage existing readers more closely with the Zero Hora brand and remind them of its history and value.

Creating new engagement journeys

The digital sign-ups provided the registration and engagement team with the opportunity to deploy additional relationship marketing actions. They were able to show non-subscribers the benefits that GZH had to offer and move them through the funnel in hopes of becoming subscribers.

The project was also beneficial for internal teams, who quickly recognised the value of using existing products to appeal to users and saw how much interest the public had in the historical covers. 

Results were positive for GZH, and the Capas de Aniversário ZH project drew 7,361 registrations, with 6,365 registrations coming from non-subscribers. The campaign delivered 4,288 new leads and 298 new subscribers, meaning it had a conversion rate of 4%.

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