2012 Bronze Best brand building campaign

Client IBM

How did the campaign make a difference? To engage C-level executives, this campaign showcased how IBM's analytics software could transform businesses via an analogy where ordinary rugby fans were turned into smarter fans. It delivered an ROI of £30 for every £1 spent. Research showed sponsorship awareness of almost twice the norm for sports - 82% more than the ITV historical average.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? IBM’s challenge is to be seen to offer analytics and software by business decision-makers, not just hardware and services. These senior figures don't gravitate towards IBM, unlike IT colleagues. So how to get them interested in IBM's analytics? The strategy was to engage them outside of work through the Rugby World Cup. This was the perfect opportunity to prompt their awareness of IBM's analytics software. IBM research showed that 59% use a smartphone or tablet to access IT information, so a fully integrated online, mobile, social and search package was created. The campaign took advantage of itv.com assets and reach to amplify the message beyond IBM channels.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? It's important to remember that C-Suite decision-makers are people too, albeit with an unusually high propensity to be sports fans. Most fans are passionate about their game and rugby fans are no different. Imagining how that passion might manifest if otherwise-ordinary fans were blessed with unusually deep and informed insights was the heart of this work. The insights were all fundamentally based on data, reflecting how IBM helps businesses make decisions through better insights.

Results TV sponsorship was uncharted territory for IBM and it was unusual for a B2B brand to do much more than rubber stamp this space with their logo. It wasn’t clear how the audience would react to a business brand in an entertainment space, so pre- and post-research was conducted via SPA Future Thinking. What resulted was sponsorship awareness twice the norm for sports, high recall of the endline and attribution to IBM. Most importantly for the brand, awareness of the sponsorship corresponded with significantly increased levels of agreement with the statement “IBM can help us generate real insight to make better decisions and significant increases in likelihood to recommend IBM to others and to recommend that their company purchases IBM”. This all translated into strong business leads for IBM.

Team Charlie Wilson, Emma de la Fosse, Pavlos Themistocleous, Andy Davis, Matt Vickers, Samantha Knock, Nina Mynk, Alison Cummins, Stephen Pipe