Bites You Back
Issue 14 | March 2010
Agency
Ogilvy Beijing
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Doug Schiff, Creative Director: Sean Shi, Copywriter: Fish Yu, Wei Xu, Art Directors: Tenghoe Teng, William Liu, Liu Fang
Production Team
Production Manager: Christine Kennard
Other Credits
Account Service: Kelly Bai, Xin Shi, Gloria Huang
Date
October 2009
Background
While most businesses have been cutting costs to deal with the economic slowdown, IBM has been advising companies to think long-term. And since IBM provides especially effective solutions for the integration of IT and business, they wanted a DM piece that would express their unique perspective.
Idea
Trying to save money by using cheap, less effective IT infrastructure can come back to haunt you in the long-term. This DM pack presented this argument clearly and, well, sharply.
Results
This piece targeted those who were using the offerings of IBM’s competitors. So the client was even more pleased when the 6% response rate was more than double the norm when sending packs to IBM’s own customer base. Feedback also strongly confirmed it helped support IBM’s leadership position within IT infrastructure.
Our Thoughts
When you judge a press ad, you judge it in seconds. DM always takes longer in the jury room because a piece needs time to unfold in your hands and for the full story to be revealed. That’s not to say that an idea can’t be communicated powerfully in the opening few seconds. It can. I was sent this pack and tore it open – and even though I can’t read Chinese, either Mandarin or Cantonese, I got the idea. Make decisions based on short-term thinking and they will come back to bite you.
To anyone out there who has allowed their subscription to Directory to lapse, the same message applies!