E-signature service provider Docusign has launched a book campaign discussing 50 pivotal agreements made through history. Kavita Singh spoke with COO Scott Olrich about the campaign’s key message.
An American company headquartered in San Francisco, DocuSign allows businesses to manage electronic agreements – making the ‘signed’ in ‘signed, sealed and delivered’ that much easier. Yet its COO Scott Olrich describes Docusign’s broader mission as “making the world more agreeable”, which was the goal was for its latest campaign: ‘The History of Innovation in 50 Agreements’.
The idea first stemmed from the company repositioning itself around agreements and not the actual signature. It researched the world’s most inspirational agreements in history publishing them as a book and e-Book.
Scott explains: “You’re happy that you’ve reached an agreement, but then it turns into despair because you have all this paperwork to fill out. We make that significantly easier to do, wherever you are in the world, and you can do that on your mobile device. We can dramatically accelerate that experience and do it in a way for consumers and businesses just expect today.”
Scott recruited Leslie Hannah, historian professor at the London School of Economics and Greg Williams, editor-in-chief of Wired UK, to help narrow down 100 agreements to just 50. Some of those deals, although landmark agreements, never came to fruition.
“One of the deals that was not made was between Netflix and the video rental company, Blockbuster. The folks from Netflix had flown out and were working on a partnership agreement, and Blockbuster turned down that deal and weren’t able to make that partnership agreement. Now you look at Blockbuster, which went bankrupt, versus Netflix, which is worth over $140 billion.”
The Docusign communications and design team were tasked with designing an online website and the print book with eco-friendly materials. The team chose uncoated compostable paper for print and a simple, easily-to-navigate design for their official website. Visitors to the website could subscribe to 10 stories by email. Additionally, they offered the ability to purchase the full collection as a gated e-Book.
The official launch was held at the tech event Momentum London and Momentum Paris with an expert panel of Jamie Bothwell, Docusign head of EMEA marketing, and the two who had worked on the project, Leslie and Greg, discussing the agreements with live blogging uploaded to social media an hour after the session wrapped.
Blog content and social media marketing received 10,000 visits within its first month, which far exceeded its initial aim of 10,000 visits within six months. Native advertising proved a success for the company as well. Docusign selected The Guardian as an advertising partner and managed to exceed its targets with its native ad campaign.
While the campaign was devised in London, it was targeted at a global scale. Having gained traction in the UK and France, Germany will be next to go live with a digital programme focused on a localised version of the eBook.
