US WEST DIRECT MAIL— This was about the ten millionth wireless phone promotion US WEST was planning to run that Christmas, and they really wanted something that would cut through their own noise. So my partner and I decided that having some fun with it being a Christmas promotion would be one way to break out of the junk mail pile.

Inside the first fold, the piece gave you two options-- Naughty or Nice. Unfold Nice and you saw our phone and our offer. Unfold Naughty and you saw... a Lump Of Coal with callouts. Yes, they actually let me waste an entire panel on a Lump of Coal, bless them.

The result? Whimsy works. Dropping just after Thanksgiving, it pulled an incredible 13% response in the four weeks before Christmas—the best results of anything DDB had done for US WEST to date.