2010 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Security of IT systems is crucial and always top priority for IT Managers. Microsoft had a set of software solutions that focused entirely on business security. They wanted to communicate this to IT heads of medium-sized businesses. Our challenge was to demonstrate to them exactly how secure their business could be with these products. We had a really small budget and had to use it to communicate this effectively.

Creative Execution

Businesses clearly associate security with money. Receiving a bank pin-slip from Microsoft with minimal information was bound to create suspense and make people log on. Accessing a message with their own name and a unique password reiterated this even more. The communication was flat, simple and stood for 'something secure' in people's minds. Moreover there was a personalized welcome which made each recipient feel like he was one of the select few to get this information.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Since security was the mainstay of our product, we conveyed our message securely! We created something no one would miss – a mailer resembling a bank pin-slip along with a letter. This led them to a website that they could only access using their name and password in the bank-slip, which in turn led to a personalized, secure message. We created 2,600 such web pages – reiterating that if we could secure their message in this way, we most definitely could secure their entire IT system too.

Results

For the first time ever, Microsoft got such a high response rate for any mailing. They received over 800 enquiries out of the 2,600 (30.7%) mailings sent. This campaign won the worldwide internal marketing award from Microsoft Corp. and is now being adapted in markets like South Africa and Germany.