The Brief

IBM was finding it increasingly difficult getting people to attend its seminars and conventions. Fewer people wanted to attend these events and spend time out of office or home. The objective was to create an invite with a difference; one that would entice the audience and encourage participation.

Creative Execution

A passive invite rarely gets any attention. So we wanted to create an interactive one. Since the event was IBM’s launch in Qatar, it also had to be relevant to the city. As a result, we created an invite that involved sand – an intrinsic part of the desert city of Qatar. Also, the sand of a country holds great emotional value for its citizens. The fact that the message ‘IBM Opens in Qatar’ was created with sand suggested that IBM has effortlessly blended with Qatar’s ethos. It created curiosity, involved the recipient and was memorable.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

The creative idea was to create intrigue. What invitees got was a black box that contained a pouch of sand. The TA was instructed to pour the sand onto the enclosed plain white card and then read the message that appeared on it. How it worked was - the sand when poured and dusted off, got stuck to invisible gum on the white card, and revealed a message – “IBM Opens in Qatar”.

Results

The invite was very successful and had high recall. 340 invites were mailed out and 135 respondents attended - a healthy response of 40%.