Looking back to look forward
IBM’s Smarter Computing Range
Issue 27 | July 2013
Agency
OgilvyOne Australia
Creative Team
Creative Director: Rob Morrison Associate Creative Director: Fiona Seton Copywriter: Alessandra Neill Art Director: Fiona Seton
Production Team
Production Manager: Ashley Risstrom Produced by: One20
Other Credits
Senior Account Director: Simon Fraser Account Manager: Simon Gawn Client: Kimberley Dawson
Date
November 2012
Background
Impressing the Senior IT Managers of Australia’s largest companies is critical for IBM. Each year ITMs decide where billions of Cap Ex dollars are invested. Smarter Computing is IBM’s platform for talking to ITMs about the three key issues they need to plan for – Cloud Computing, Big Data and Security. This mailing was designed to: - Generate 280 responses from hard-to-reach ITMs - Maximise the number who view Steve Godbee’s video – he’s IBM’s most senior ITM - Turn these responses into 56 leads worth $50k each long term.
Idea
It’s easy to forget that the Senior IT Manager of today was the spotty IT geek of yesterday. They’ve grown up with the DOS operating system, dot-matrix printers and servers the size of houses. They’ve seen a lot. In the same way that these technologies are now obsolete, the technology that we see as leading-edge today will become obsolete too, possibly more rapidly than ever. By sending them a 5 ¼ inch floppy disk they show that they understand them as people first – and cleverly avoid Australia Post’s expensive Dimensional Mail costs. The video they are driving their ITMs to view features Steve Godbee describing the changes he’s seen in his time at IBM. He goes on to explain how excited he is about the future for all ITMs. Steve looks back to look forward. So, to match this they found an iconic symbol of IT’s past to demonstrate how quickly the industry is moving and how important it is to plan well or get left behind.
Results
The number of page views by our time-poor IT Manager audience reached 122% of target. Average time on the page was 5:24 – more than twice the site average of 2:44. Leads and the size of deals are a long-term goal they are still working towards.