Parallel Paths
IBM - Lotus Notes - Branded Content video
Issue 24 | September 2012
Agency
Ogilvy Beijing
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Doug Schiff Creative Director: Teng Teong Hoe Copywriter: Wei Xu, Fish Yu Art Director: Liu Fang, Gary Cheng
Production Team
Production Company: Beijing Ant-X Production Company Music Studio: Ost-studio Director: Zhang Hao Producer: Li Chen Editor: Wei Le
Other Credits
Account team: Major Lin, Sheng Lee, Suya Wang, Liu Ching
Date
June 2012
Background
Lotus Notes suffered from being tired, a little fuddy-duddy and not nearly as appealing or sexy as G-mail. At the same time, it actually had some great features people didn’t use because they didn’t know about them.
Idea
Since a video about Lotus Notes sounded about as boring as a dentist appointment, and maybe nearly as painful, the creative solution took a completely different route. This branded content entertained while featuring the lesser-known meaningful features. The film was promoted and distributed on China’s largest social media platform—Weibo.
Results
This campaign was a break-through in many ways. It was a long-form film, which got people talking about the software product and social business in general.
It was followed up by Social Business days in coffee shops such as Starbucks, where deep conversations could take place between IBM facilitators and business people.
The target was for Validated Lead worth 3 million RMB, while the campaign brought in 8.12 million RMB!
11,948,744 people were reached on Weibo, obviously reaching the target and way beyond.
Our Thoughts
I really do urge you to watch this video