in short
Hitachi Data Systems' clients were primarily large organisations (banks, telcos, public sector), however their offering expanded to also cater to SMEs. The brief for us was to lift Hitachi Data Systems brand awareness in a market that was dominated by server vendors such as HP, IBM and Dell. Our other objectives were to generate leads and drive incremental revenue for the business.
OUR APPROACH
Two issues compounded the situation. Firstly, how do you engage the difficult-to-reach audience of IT managers and, secondly, how do you get cut-through when your competitors are seriously outspending you?
One thing we did have going for us was that we had established a core truth about the audience through consumer research. What we discovered is that all IT managers have one thing in common - they all have an IT horror story they are willing to share!
Using this insight, we undertook a brand awareness campaign wth a viral twist based on the core insight called 'True IT Tales - IT Horror Stories'. To bring the horror stories to life, a comic artist called Katie Houghton-Ward was commissioned to depict six horror situations where a Hitachi Data storage solution would have come in very handy. In one comic strip we see back-up tapes being destroyed by Jim the IT Manager's nieces while, in another, a virus is unleashed onto the server by an employee downloading files from his home computer; all familiar nightmares faced by the target audience. Each IT horror story was complemented by a series of tools that aimed to educate and assist the IT manager to resolve the issue, including whitepapers, case studies and analyst reports. In total, over 30 downloads were available on the site that support the need for data storage and assist IT managers to build their business case for implementing the solution. In order to capture leads, visitors were asked to register to access the information.
In addition to this, the audience was given the opportunity to share their own IT horror stories in a user-generated section of the site. Submissions went in the running to win a customised comic by Katie.
CLIENT FEEDBACK
True IT Tales generated over 5,000 unique visitors in the first 90 days. We experienced strong levels of click through for all online components, and 45% of the traffic that came to the site was direct; demonstrating that people were actively sharing the URL with their peers.
Hitachi Data Systems also attracted 148 leads as a result of the campaign. Overall, the return on investment for the client was over 85%.
The success of True IT Tales has also been recognised by the marketing industry. The campaign was a finalist in the Marketing Communications, Business to Business category of the 2009 Australian Marketing Institute Awards for Marketing Excellence.