Siemens IT Solutions
When Siemens AG had taken the big decision to make its global IT services division an independent company, a brand strategy was needed to match the gravity of that decision.
Approach
Siemens IT Solutions and Services (SIS) needed to let the world
know that the outsourced IT market was going to be positively
changed as a consequence. To proclaim that the IBMs and Accentures
of this world were not calling all the tunes. And to make a clear
proposition to the market that the edge they are always looking for
can not only be supported by technology, but delivered using
it.
Everyone dreams of revolutionising their market but the conditions
are rarely right. As IAS looked into the IT market, we discovered a
major opportunity to do just that. Thought leaders and forward
thinking companies were debating, and practicing, the end of IT and
the start of something more useful to the leaner, greener 21
st Century organisation. They called it Business
Technology, born from the need to align business strategy with
technology. The CIO's role was changing from the biggest IT guy to
a Master Operational Strategist. And he knew that 'Information' is
too small a word to cover the role of technology in modern
business. A category was forming before our eyes. Business
Technology was a category in the making. And the more we looked
around at the competition, the more we realised Business Technology
was a category for the taking.
The strategy was ambitious but simple: To take ownership of the
emerging category of Business Technology. We repositioned the SIS
brand as The Business Technologists. A major international campaign
was planned to launch the Business Technologists and edge the
market from IT closer to the Business Technology tipping point. At
which point, who would people turn to for Business Technology? The
Business Technologists of course.
The Business Technologists proclamations campaign has heralded the
beginning of a new era. With statements like "In the beginning
there was IT. Then came the Business Technologists." real Business
Technologists from Siemens have made historically inspired
statements to announce the game change. The external launch
targeted global IT decision makers across the US, UK, Germany and
Austria.
Results
After the launch online impressions versus booked impressions were
impressive at +134% in Germany, +121% in US and +163% in UK with
1,200 click throughs from banner advertising at an average CTR of
0.2% (not bad for brand advertising). However the integration of
mobile banners confirmed IAS' existing knowledge on the importance
of mobile communication within this sector. CTRs soared as high as
1.77% in US and average click-through rates were much higher across
the board.
2010 was just the beginning of the Business Technologists campaign
to both create and lead the category of Business Technology.
Perhaps the most telling insight of all is the fact that the UK has
seen Google searches for the term Business Technology increase by
80% since the external campaign launched in March 2011.
Involvement
This work was undertaken by BBN UK: IAS b2b Marketing.