Creepy or Clever Marketing? Porsche Dealer Puts Your House in Direct Marketing Material

The dealership took a white Porsche 911 Carrera S to well-monied Toronto neighborhoods and photographed it in front of various homes. A print production crew in a cargo van nearby then took those photos and, right on the spot, created individual postcards using each photo that invited homeowners to a test drive. It then delivered the postcards to mailboxes, saving potential buyers from having to merely imagine a Porsche in their driveways.

This isn't the kind of marketing play you'd be likely to pull off in America, what with the guns, gates and armed guards, but it worked a treat in Toronto. Traditional direct-mail response is usually in the low single digits, but Pfaff's response rate to the "It's Closer Than You Think" campaign was 32 percent.