Brand: Cisco WebEx, Agency: dnx
Background
Cisco Webex is the market leader in online collaboration tools. The tools enable people to share ideas, documents, applications and even their desktop. Teams can work together in real time from any location.
Cisco WebEx needed to improve their awareness as a business collaboration tool across Europe. We were tasked to come up with an innovative, long-term media solution that would reinforce the business benefits of sharing ideas online via WebEx.
The campaign
We approached LinkedIn, the professional networking site, as it is the perfect medium for talking to hard-to-reach professionals, particularly those in SME’s working across multiple regions.
LinkedIn also shares the same values as WebEx – they’re all about collaboration and networking, too. LinkedIn users are big advocates of the network and we could build on this by aligning WebEx the two brands.
We therefore created The LinkedIn European Business Awards. There were four categories: Best Business Leader, Best Business Start-up, Best Business Innovation and Rising Star of the Year.
The target audience
The Awards were aimed at all business professionals within the European LinkedIn network, particularly entrepreneurs and professionals in SME’s and business start-ups. Using LinkedIn data we could also target key professions including marketing, IT and service industries.
The Awards
There were four stages to the Awards.
1. Entry submission.
Members could nominate themselves or others for one of four categories.
2. Support.
Nominees could canvas support for their entry using their LI network. Their status was automatically updated with news of nomination, and a link was added to their page. This allowed a wider network, beyond those nominated, to participate from the beginning.
3. The shortlist
This was chosen by the judges (Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, Reid Hoffman and James Campanini). The entire European LinkedIn network could then vote for their favourites in each category. The top x in each category went through to the final.
4. The judges then picked the winner in each category. The final was held live via WebEx, with the judges announcing the final winners.
The awards website was the heart of the activity. It contained details of the awards, judges’ videos, the online entry process and the option to take a free WebEx trial.
Generating awareness
As this was the first awards programme of its kind, we had to build up awareness, create engagement and encourage participation.
We ran banners across LinkedIn, with tailored messaging at each stage. We also sent out 100,000 inmails to our specified target groups.
Once a critical mass of entries had built up, we started a featured LinkedIn group. Accessible to any European LinkedIn user, this group provided a forum for discussion about the awards.
We ran polls, news features, tips for improving entries, interviews with the judges and Q&A’s.
We also ran one of the first Smart Ad units on LinkedIn, which constantly updated users by pulling content from the group, the awards site and the Twitter account.
Spreading the word
To extend awareness of the Awards, we used Twitter, forums, bloggers and YouTube.
Our Twitter account gave real-time updates and further engaged the audience. It also allowed us to follow influential tweeters to give us further reach. With retweets and hashtags, this was a highly successful mechanism for raising awareness.
A YouTube account was set up to host video interviews with the judges.
Posts were added to Business Forums across Europe. These generated many conversations about LinkedIn and WebEx and started debates about the awards themselves.
Finally, business/social bloggers were given exclusive information to encourage them to cover the Awards. They were able to set the poll questions and pose questions to the judges in the Q&A.
Timescales
Targets and results
As this was a new initiative, it was hard to set targets for campaign effectiveness. As an awareness campaign, our aim was to engage and interact with as many European users of LinkedIn as possible.
Target votes
We assumed that each nominee and their nominator will encourage at least 5 people to vote. This would equate to 2025 votes.
LinkedIn Group
We aimed to get 600 group members and 150 followers on Twitter.
Client testimonial
“The Awards were a great example of integrating online and social media to virally extend the campaign’s reach, providing us with the opportunity to connect with a wider audience in a relevant and compelling way.
The Awards were seamlessly executed, with the team proactively managing all aspects of the communication channels and responding directly to requests from individuals across the globe in a timely and professional manner.
In my opinion, this was a unique idea which fulfilled our objectives in helping Cisco WebEx increase awareness across its core European markets.”
James Campanini, managing director, Cisco WebEx for EMEA and LATAM (European Business Awards Judge)
