ANALYTICS WITHOUT THE ANALYTICS

TitleANALYTICS WITHOUT THE ANALYTICS
BrandIBM
Product / ServiceIBM
CategoryB01. Corporate Image & Information
EntrantOGILVY BEIJING, CHINA
Entrant Company:OGILVY BEIJING, CHINA
Sales Promotion/Advertising Agency:OGILVY BEIJING, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
Doug Schiff Ogilvy Beijing Executive Creative Director
Sean Shi Ogilvy Beijing Creative Director
Teonghoe Teng, William Liu Ogilvy Beijing Art Directors
Wei Xu Ogilvy Beijing Copywriter
Morris Ku Ogilvy Beijing Video Producer
Lily Tung, Lee Sheng, Suya Wang, Sissi Lee, Yingying Wang Ogilvy Beijing Account Team
Cecilia Zhou, Rachel Hu Ogilvy Beijing PR Team
Yuhong Wang, Chuangye Yan, Jingxin Guo, Jinhua Qi, Kun Zhang IBM Client Team
fm-interactive Production Company

The Brief

IBM China was introducing their BAO (Business Analytics Optimization) tool to a C-Suite target through a standard industry Forum. So the brief became, how could they bring both the Forum and BAO offering to life in an unexpected, engaging way that wasn't weighed down by overly technical data-oriented analytics.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

Since one of IBM's best BAO cases has been in its use in fighting AIDs in Africa, a young Chinese journalist was sent to begin a dialogue about a variety of topics the Chinese have been interested in; including African culture, everyday life as well as AIDs research. She related her experiences via Weibo, China's Twitter. The more topics she brought up, the more followers and responders she had. One responder was named BAO. Their back and forth dialogue explained how the IBM tool helped doctors explore new treatments. She also tweeted and posted video about other BAO cases.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Just a week after the campaign began, 41,510 were following the BAO Twitter (Weibo) journey, while over 9,700,000 were exposed to the social media campaign. Targeted potential Forum attendees were equally captivated by the Weibo exchanges and attendance exceeded goals by 37%. In the end, instead of becoming more technical and analytical, IBM became more human.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Since IBM was reaching more than just IT managers with this campaign, it was decided to make the talk about the analytical tool as interesting as possible, covering a wide range of topics about Africa, which was currently a hot topic among Chinese. It was particularly appropriate for the brand because IBM's image often tends to be a bit cold, distant and uncaring among the C-Suite target. So this campaign beautifully influenced away from this perspective.