2010 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Security is a big challenge in the banking sector in Libya. IT people have to handle large amounts of confidential customer information. Microsoft has a set of security solutions with a special focus on banking security. As communication is not that evolved in this market, we were briefed on a simple letter to communicate this to IT heads of top banks in Libya. Our challenge was to capture attention in their busy schedules through this simple medium and a small budget.

Creative Execution

Amongst the many regular looking mails these IT heads received daily, a transparent envelope easily stood out. The idea clearly demonstrated to them what a threat it was when personal information became visible to everyone. And that they could avoid the same to happen to their valuable customers. Our creative really saved costs too – our spend was just on transparent envelopes and regular postage. The letters from the Account Managers were printed in-house.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

What’s most important for these IT heads is to ensure no one has visibility into their customer data and systems. So we sent them a letter with a difference. An absolutely transparent envelope and inside, visible to everyone, was a personalized letter from their Microsoft Account Manager. Simply asking if they could afford their IT systems to be this transparent and vulnerable. They were told how Microsoft had security solutions to protect confidential information of their customers from being visible to everyone, like this letter was.

Results

Out of the 40 letters sent out, IT heads of 21 banks responded during the first week of communication. They showed interest in the security solutions and 7 of them are already in the process of acquiring Microsoft Forefront for their banks.