Summary
In late 2010, global systems integrator CSC and integrated agency The Crocodile ran an integrated campaign to promote CSC’s cloud computing solutions.
Key objectives:
• Drive cloud revenue opportunities for CSC and its vendor partners.
To be achieved by:
• Engaging in face-to-face dialogue with CIOs and CFOs to educate and explain the relevance of cloud, and gain a position of trusted advisor.
• Positioning CSC and its vendor partners (Cisco, EMC, VMware) as the ‘dream team’ cloud providers with the leading cloud vision in the enterprise space.
The ‘Blueprint’ campaign enabled CSC to meet face-to-face with more than 50 organisations, and engage with several hundred more. It did so through an integrated campaign including:
• Very high impact, personalised direct mail designed to circumvent gatekeepers and prompt recall.
• Personalised micro sites with individual CXO login, supported by e-marketing and banner advertising.
• High value engagement programme starring renowned thought-leaders in cloud technology and business, with attendance driven by intensive telemarketing.
The ‘Blueprint’ campaign resulted in CSC:
• Winning a $50 million deal to move a utility client’s IT infrastructure to the cloud.
• Building a further pipeline of around 16 enterprise prospects valued at over $150 million.
About CSC
CSC is the world’s leading independent IT systems integrator and outsourcing company, with staff numbers of 91,000 in more than 90 countries. As part of its cloud computing strategy, CSC has formed a partnership with leaders in cloud technology innovation — VMware, Cisco and EMC. Integrated agency, The Crocodile works closely with CSC, helping the company to use creative and effective marketing solutions to meet its business objectives.
Strategy — broader business issues the company is facing
Cloud has changed the outsourcing business model almost overnight. Focus has shifted from cost benefits to the incredible business agility that can be achieved — requiring a corporate mindset change.
With cloud emerging so quickly, it was important for CSC to go to market with impact and confidence, demonstrating a leadership position that would resonate with its enterprise audience, deliver quick wins
and help cement market ownership. CSC won the opportunity from the VCE Alliance (VMWare, Cisco and EMC) to be the first service company to offer virtual data centre capability on the new Vblock platform, gaining an advantage over IT services competitors such as IBM and HP. For large enterprises, cloud requires justification beyond IT productivity or cost savings — it needs to demonstrate transformational benefit, a big theme requiring additional buy-in at board level.
Objectives of the campaign
Campaign objectives at the planning stage:
1. Positioning CSC and its vendor partners (VMWare, Cisco, EMC) as the ‘dream team’ cloud providers with the leading cloud vision in the enterprise space. Tactics:
• Three-stage integrated campaign combining DM, email, banner advertising, social media, telemarketing and thought-leadership events.
• Microsite resources including thought-leadership videos, whitepapers and success stories to underline CSC’s capability.
2. Engaging in face-to-face dialogue with CIOs and CFOs to educate and explain the relevance and impact of this important technology and gain a position of trusted advisor. Tactics:
• Fielding a global team of CSC’s brightest and best cloud innovators, bringing them to the UK and deploying them at thought-leadership events, industry conferences and CSC round tables.
• Driving meetings and attendance principally through telemarketing follow-up and through call-to-action mechanisms on DM, email and personalised invitations.
Target audience
• Decision-makers — CIO and CFO (communicating the ‘Business Transformation Journey’) IT director (communicating the ‘IT Transformation Journey’).
•Organisations — FTSE 350 enterprises and other non-listed large enterprises in the UK.
•Sectors — early adopters, financial services, public sector, other verticals with more advanced cloud ambitions, healthcare, utilities.
• Size of targeted pool — 650 contacts in 400 organisations.
Media, channels or techniques used
Most current marketing campaigns for cloud solutions are visually fixated on clichéd cloud imagery. The Crocodile’s solution was to focus on the business benefits, and the fact that currently only CSC and its partners can provide a practical plan for the enterprise journey to the cloud. This led to the campaign theme ‘CSC has the blueprint for enterprise IT agility’.
The ‘Blueprint’ campaign was implemented in three overlapping phases:
1. Impact, awareness, consideration:
• High impact personalised Blueprint direct mail.
• Scale and personalisation to make an impact and get through gatekeepers
• Couriered or hand-delivered by account managers.
• Contact-specific email.
• Messaging to support CIO or IT director messaging/targeting
• Integration. Click on personalised URL to visit your own microsite page.
• Using web banner advertising and Twitter to drive traffic to the microsite.
2. Education, engagement.
• Personalised microsite.
• Collateral — videos, whitepapers etc.
• Invitations to events.
• Intensive telemarketing to booking meetings, drive event attendance and gain marketing Intelligence
3. Dialogue, trust, opportunity. With a face-to-face dialogue programme leveraging CSC’s world-leading experts and events targeted at board-level decision makers, CSC engaged in valuable customer dialogue, built trust and developed real opportunities.
• CSC executive briefings.
• Education for small groups at CSC’s Gherkin conference centre hosted by Ron Brown, EMEA director of cloud computing, CSC.
• Telepresence programme with Doug Neal, research fellow for the Leading Edge Forum.
• Cloud Circle, Virtualisation and Cloud Summit.
• Meetings and discussion with CSC’s cloud guru Siki Giunta, VP of cloud computing.
• Masterclass with Michael Capellas.
• Leadership presentation by the chairman and CEO of the VCE Alliance.
• Third-party analyst briefings.
• Using blueprint as backdrop for presenting CSC’s cloud vision.
Timescales of the campaign
Phase one activities — May-July 2010.
Phase two activities — July 2010.
Phase three activities — September-October 2010.
Results
• Target universe — 650 targets in 380 organisations.
• Successfully delivered direct mails — 626.
• Unique visits to microsite by target universe — 104.
• Unique visits to microsite by non-targeted individuals (excluding client/agency) — 2333.
• Number of microsite visits from CSC website — 1027.
• Number of microsite visits from Twitter — 534.
• Successful telemarketing calls to target universe — 192.
• Target audience face-to-face engagement — 50.
Client testimonial
Mark Davis, marketing director UK, CSC, said, “CSC and its partners made a significant investment in the ‘Blueprint’ campaign because we had faith in the strategy and the creative, and a firm conviction that it would deliver enterprise-level new business. The resulting revenue will exceed our best projection by 250 per cent and offer an ROI that’s off the scale.”
Vince Powell, director, Solution Sales and Alliances EMEA, commented, “Everything about ‘Blueprint’ was on the money — the messaging, the direct mail, the follow up, the thought-leadership events — everything tight and really well integrated to make an impact and get the results we wanted.”
