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Overview
The HiPath OpenOffice campaign represented a move into a new market for Siemens and a new category of product for SME’s to really benefit from the ‘unified communications’ solutions provided by Siemens.
The campaign launched to the UK and German markets in December 2007 and aimed to achieve awareness and response through high impact and cost effective communications.
Amaze devised the entire rollout from campaign planning and media buying to print and digital production. In particular innovative video ads dramatised key features of the product, with characters interacting across multiple ad placements.
Campaigns in US and Europe followed in Spring 2008.
In what way was the campaign effective in generating business for the commissioning organisation, directly or indirectly, or in strengthening the brand and its values?*
Following on from other successful online campaigns for Siemens Enterprise Communications focused on communications technology for large enterprises, the HiPath OpenOffice campaign required a radical approach for a radical product.
Siemens’ aim was to engage SME audiences and build awareness of a truly innovative solution ... HiPath OpenOffice represents the first time SME’s can really benefit from the ‘unified communications’ solutions provided by Siemens.
Shifting focus to the SME market meant the campaign needed to highlight the product’s practical benefits and how communications technology really can deliver on big promises. It also meant focusing on developing supportive relationships with the 3rd party channel distributors as a key route to market for the SME customer base.
This campaign is a first step in an ongoing programme of activity. Launching a new communications category into a market and establishing channel relationships means initial effectiveness will be judged in terms of awareness, engagement and interest rather than hard sales.
The HiPath OpenOffice campaign has certainly delivered on these measures – driving awareness, response and also softer markers of engagement. It has been fantastically received across internal, agency and indirect channel audiences, as well as the main SME target audience.
The creative approach of the campaign provided high levels of salience and stand-out. The motivating line, “Open up your office to a new way of working”, has successfully translated Siemens’ proposition to a new SME audience but has also acted as a clear rallying cry to the organisation itself and its partners.
Within Siemens, the campaign has created excitement and buy-in to the extent that it is now planned to roll out into many further markets, along with requests for additional assets and campaign elements.
The campaign has been used to champion Siemens’ re-launch of its partner programme and has been seen to support partners to a new level. A highly detailed ‘marketing toolkit’ has been produced to support partners in many international markets, including all required assets, guidelines and processes.
Not least of all, the campaign concepts have been received by spontaneous rounds of applause when presented to the international agencies we work with to localise the campaign across Europe – an unprecedented response!
During the short time the campaign has run to date, key performance indicators of end customer response have been closely tracked. The online campaign was optimised on a weekly basis via EyeWonder’s ad serving platform. Google Analytics was used to enable optimisation of the landing pages, in particular for the channel website, and also to track performance of the print campaign via a series of short URLs.
The campaign launched to the channel in December 2007 and to end customers in January 2008.
• Total of 2 million impressions were served with over 20% video’s viewed to completion and 22% interactions
• Clickthroughs ranging from 0.5% – 2.5% (industry average 0.2-3%)
• Over 5,000 website visits
• Over 1,900 demo’s viewed to completion on the website
• 1,254 brochure downloads (581 driven directly from online ads)
• Over 75 podcast downloads
What part of the marketing or brand development campaign used online or digital technology?*
Online response via a campaign microsite formed the hub for all marketing activity including both traditional and online channels. Two websites were produced, one to support end customers and another to recruit indirect channel partners. Both sites shared commonalities including a set of feature orientated videos and demos, PDF brochures and a podcast to provide additional engagement and product education.
An online rich media advertising campaign was chosen as the lead channel to build awareness of the HiPath OpenOffice solution. This was due to its ability to:
• Deliver cut-through cost effectively in a highly targeted manner
• Incorporate the essential people element into the campaign as this is fundamentally what the solution is all about.
• Allow us to demonstrate all the key features of the solution
• Enable interested users to find out more using a landing page housing video demos, brochure PDF’s available to download from within the ad and even request a call back
The core ad formats were MPU’s and Leaderboard’s booked as tandem ads. These appeared in sync using streaming video from EyeWonder.
A series of ads were devised around the 3 core messages of Presence, Conference Management and Mobility. Each ad brought to life the innovative nature of the solution in an entertaining way and also worked on a ‘practical’ level to feature HiPath OpenOffice’s ease of use. Tailor made live-action video was shot for each MPU and Leaderboard with the characters specially directed to take into account the the two formats relative positions on the page.
For example, the tandem ad called ‘Find me’ promoting Presence starts with a man with binoculars looking for his colleagues. In the leaderboard we see him scanning the room, whilst simultaneously in the MPU we see the room from his viewpoint. This filmic-style use of multiple camera angles gave the ad huge stand out on the page.
The media campaign focused on contextual targeting specifically takeovers of SME channels within leading IT and business websites including the ‘SME Director’ channel of Silicon, ‘SME Toolkit’ of ZDNet and small business channels within the Telegraph and The Times. Behavioural targeting was also utilised on the Telegraph based upon the known IP addresses of small businesses. Finally homepage takeovers were utilised across key SME websites including MyBusiness, Growing Business, Real Business and Fresh Business Thinking.
Channel takeovers were booked on 4 leading channel websites including Channel Register, Comms Business, Comms Dealer and Channel Web. Channel ads were tailored for the ‘Go Forward’ partner programme and call to actions tailored.
Solus and publisher emails were booked to support the display advertising including a database of 50,000 SME users with ComputerWeekly for the launch week of the campaign. In addition a Google search campaign was ran in conjunction focusing on keywords relating to small business including ‘small business technologies’ and ‘small business solutions’.
The campaign idea also extended into offline media in press ads, direct mail and a ‘toolkit’ of supporting collateral for channel partners.
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