How do you get employees of a financial firm, hit by the recession, to embrace the firm’s marketing?
It’s no small feat.
For iShares, leaders in the ETF space, we put together an internal campaign that mixed equal parts humor, inspiration and fun—along with some twists.
Posters and clings reminded everyone that the company tagline, Keep Evolving, was a means to a larger end; a 22-page graphic novel was perhaps the world’s first brand guidelines book to be read cover to cover; finally, we created a contest, asking people to come up with ways they could Keep Evolving.
Participation was so remarkable, upwards of 90%, that we decided to capture it in a video.
The video subsequently aired in iShares offices worldwide, to ovations.
SOCIAL MEDIA. USE YOUR POWERS FOR GOOD.
There’s a blog born every half-second, according to CNET. (Nearly as often as School of Thought tweets.)
So when iShares asked us to help develop a social media campaign, our first question was: does the world really need another blog, Twitter and Facebook page?
In this case, yes—because tens of thousands of investors look to iShares for financial insights.
Sixty days later, iShares had a social marketing strategy and campaign up and running. Within six months, a company that, prior to our involvement, had no blog, was voted as the top blog in the financial services category*.
Proof that, when clients and agencies work as a team, great things can happen quickly.
*Kasina, Top 5 Social Media Leaders in Asset Management, May 2011.
The Story
When you have meetings with Milliman you can always be sure of one thing: you’re not the smartest person in the room. Their 1200 consultants’ work is comprised of compelling, topical stories in risk analysis, healthcare, mortgage banking, pension planning, and a dozen other areas at the leading edge of business. Once we got through studying, our challenge was to frame these stories to attract the attention of the target market, generally C-level executives.
The Work
Print advertising, short documentary films, online banners (simple and rich media), website
redesigns, trade show videos and complex product demos.
The campaign has galvanized a company-wide shift at Milliman, from modesty about their impressive work, to pride. On the outside, C-level audiences are taking notice, as they encounter one story after another across multiple media. Digital banners are outperforming industry averages by 60%. Time of average site visits has increased 50%. And a recent survey by CFO magazine indicates that our print ads have the highest reader recall scores in their category.
The Story
In the world of Search, Microsoft has long been—remarkably—the underdog, a virtual unknown. So, in 2005, they came to us with a challenging request: develop a buzz campaign for their search engine, Live Search, the #3 product in a category not exactly known for high excitement.
The Work
We set about to create a dynamic web experience, which would not be supported by any advertising.
Our solution was to personify the search experience, creating a virtual librarian of sorts. Except this wouldn’t be your typical librarian. She’d know anything and everything, anticipating questions even before you formed them.
After filming 600 responses, and linking them to literally millions of keywords, we introduced the world to Ms. Dewey.
Without a cent in advertising support, our expectations were low. We hoped for 200,000 visitors.
We beat them, to say the least.
Daily traffic to the site soon outpaced VW.com. All told, over 25 million people visited the site. Hundreds of news stories were generated, along with thousands of blogs.
Ms. Dewey was a gamble for the client. But it was one that paid exceedingly well.
The Story
In 2007, Hawaii’s tourism was struggling, with nearly a 20% drop in tourist traffic and spending. Travelers looking for an exotic destination were passing over Hawaii in favor of Thailand, and other destinations seen as more unique.
Faced with these daunting numbers, the Hawaiian Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB) asked us to develop a digital campaign, using rich media banner ads to help the 50th state become people’s first choice.
The Work
The goal was to get Hawaii in the mix during the “decision runoff,” when travelers are narrowing
their list of possible destinations. The solution was banners with compelling headlines and arresting film clips, providing the hook at the very moment when travelers are making plans. Audiences responded in droves.
The campaign had an Average Interaction Rate of 17% as compared with the industry benchmark of 1.91%. Some of our banners had interaction rates as high as 45%, in fact. Despite a fairly modest media spend, viewers watched our videos a total of 1.9 million times.
In total, according to the client, this was the best performing ad campaign in HVCB history.
The Story
AAA is a remarkable company, with a wide array of products. The challenge is that they are principally known for one thing: tow trucks. Unless you happen to own an unreliable car, it’s hard to rationalize the membership fee. Especially as other sources of emergency service are becoming increasingly available.
The Work
We set out with two goals in mind: remind people
about all of AAA’s valuable services, while simultaneously raising the perceived value of the brand with a slightly more upscale campaign look and feel.
The client was thrilled with these ads. When budget cuts reduced their media dollars, they weren’t able to run the ads, but we’ve included them here because the client liked them quite a bit, and, well, they’re great ads.
The Story
Microsoft’s developer community is the heart and soul of the company. Lose the developers, and you’re done. It’s as simple as that.
The other challenge is that both the developers and Microsoft know that it’s effectively the only game in town. If you’re going to develop for a PC, you almost certainly need the Microsoft toolkit, Visual Studio. Microsoft works hard to maintain the relationship with these developers, but the potential for backlash is high, why we had to tread carefully.
Awareness certainly wasn’t the goal. Reminding the community that Microsoft is, at its core, a number (albeit a high number) of developers just like, was. We wanted to show some empathy. We knew what late nights were like. We knew what deadlines were like. And we certainly knew what Red Bull was, as coolers of the stuff can be found on every floor.
The Work
Over three years, we produced dozens, perhaps hundreds, of communications on behalf of
Visual Studio. Since this was a fairly narrow market, we got to take a few liberties with the campaign, creating web films that were comparatively edgy.
The first campaign, 400 Differences, showed an company filled with developers struggling to overcome the every day challenges. Like the project manager who wouldn’t take no for an answer. A midnight run to the fridge was another web film we created, based on an actual developer story, where the developer opens the door to reveal…only a tub of margarine. Hey, it’s still got calories, right?
A year later, to create something truly distinctive, we created another campaign based on snapshots of developer life. The twist was that we used video game characters, like the guys from Halo, as our actors.
These were among the most successful campaigns in Microsoft’s history, especially among the developer community.
The Story
In 2000, Tom started working at a Hal Riney spin-off that had about ten dot.com clients. This might explain why the agency went under subsequently. Anyway, these weren’t your average tech clients. This was super geeky, technical stuff. Aside from these dot.coms, the agency had one consumer brand, a company called Jelly Belly. Guess which client we all wanted to work on. (It didn’t hurt when the account executive would walk by daily, taking orders for flavors. Sour apple, please, perhaps with a Margarita chaser?)
Jelly Belly is one of those remarkable success stories. Between a solid product and some guy named Reagan, the product had great awareness.
What could we tell the world that they didn’t already know?
The Work
Jelly Beans, in general, are pretty yucky. Pretty on the outside, devoid of flavor inside. Jelly Belly beans, on the other hand, are incredibly flavorful. Was there a way to dramatize the fact that these remarkably tiny confections were supercharged with flavor—as close to their namesakes as you can get?
There was. Ultimately, the company didn’t go with this campaign, which is too bad, because the true-to-life flavor is really at the heart of the brand, but that’s life in the big city.
© 2011 School of Thought, LLC.
