Secret agent character perks up a direct b-to-b campaign
Secret agent character perks up a direct b-to-b campaign
Client: Logicalis Group
Agency: Sudden Impact Marketing
Objective: Make a lead-generating b-to-b campaign more appealing with a striking collateral design.
Based in the UK, Logicalis Group is an international provider of integrated information and communications technology services. With more than 5,000 clients and a reported annual revenue of more than $1 billion, Logicalis partners with such companies as Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard Development Co., IBM Corp. and Microsoft Corp. on solutions for enterprise and medium-sized companies in the financial services, retail, manufacturing and professional service industries.
STRATEGY: Logicalis wanted to promote its data center and IT consulting solutions in a crowded marketplace, according to Amee BellWanzo, account services executive at Sudden Impact Marketing, which worked with Logicalis. "The whole point is all those different services are not super unusual," she says. "Everybody has to have them, but the market is saturated. We needed to come up with a way to break through all that noise."
Sudden Impact created a series of mailings that were designed around the character of Johnny Logic, a troubleshooting spy modeled after the TV character Doctor Who. Three-dimensional mailings as well as an online game had the hero battling archenemies (who were dubbed the Masters of Disasters) representing various IT challenges. Each mailing included fun elements including a Johnny Logic lunchbox or action figure. The campaign targeted a core audience of male techies, primarily in their thirties.
"They have kind of thankless jobs — we wanted to lighten things up a bit," says Lisa Dreher, Logicalis' VP of marketing and business development. "The goal was to add some levity to it, but at the same time, add some real information."
RESULTS: Targets came from Logicalis' own database; it does not buy lists. After the pieces were mailed, prospects were telephoned and urged to set up appointments.
The latest mailing put 184 appointments in the sales pipeline, and to date has generated new business from clients amounting to approximately $4.5 million, meaning the campaign brought in 30 times what it cost, according to Dreher. Johnny Logic has been retired for the time being, but Dreher says she wouldn't rule out bringing him back down the road.
