microsoft #officelove 2015 - best brand initiative

21 Best brand initiative:

#OfficeLove campaign for Microsoft by The Marketing Practice

#OfficeLove was the central brand campaign underpinning the increase in Lumia’s business share to 26%1 from a base level of 12%2

02Entry category 21: Best brand initiative

Summary

Microsoft needed to transform the fortunes of its Lumia brand in the business market to deliver on its “mobile first, cloud first” strategy. It was seeing traction from its wider Lumia Business Transformation Programme, but its brand metrics still lagged well behind the market leaders’. It realised that stainable commercial success could only be achieved if the brand was given a significant boost in the market.

#OfficeLove was initiated to build consideration and preference with hard-to-reach IT decision-makers but also create pull from business end-users who are increasingly influential in their employers’ mobile choice.

We developed the provocative creative platform that “8 out of 10 relationships start in the office”, based on research showing that 80% of people who use Lumia at work subsequently choose to use it for personal use.

We communicated this using a mix of traditional B2B channels and innovative B2C-style techniques to generate a wider emotional engagement with the brand and achieved:

• 21% increase in consideration (target 14%)

• 12% increase in preference (target 4%)

• 10–15% improvement in perception against key brand attributes

#OfficeLove was the central brand campaign underpinning the increase in Lumia’s business share to 26%1 from a base level of 12%2

1 Source: http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/2015/03/20/microsoft-ready-for-major-consumer-war/

2 Source: http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-announces-lumia-business-trial-campaign-for-uk-businesses/


About the client

Microsoft has a long heritage of transforming the way people live, work, play and connect. As more business activity moves from the desktop to mobile devices, Microsoft offers customers a seamless experience across all screens. In support of its “mobile first, cloud first” strategy, Microsoft acquired Nokia’s mobile device business in early 2014, giving it ownership of the Lumia smartphone line and the ability to deliver a full Microsoft ecosystem for mobile environments.

Microsoft needed to raise the profile and reputation of the Lumia brand among business users


Strategy

Since the launch of iPhone, the mobility landscape in business has changed radically. Nokia, previously the dominant force in mobile, had seen its market share shrink significantly before its acquisition by Microsoft.

Mobile devices are now heavily commoditised, and the market is intensely competitive. To create a winning strategy for its devices, Microsoft needed to raise the profile and reputation of the Lumia brand among business users.

Throughout 2014, Microsoft ran a Lumia Business Transformation Programme to drive growth of Lumia in Business. The programme included a series of content marketing initiatives, pipeline generation programmes and sales/channel-enablement projects, and the programme was starting to show real market share benefits. However, Microsoft’s B2B brand tracking still showed that Lumia was trailing behind the market leaders in end-user and IT decision-maker consideration and preference. Addressing this was the challenge for the #OfficeLove campaign.


Objectives of the campaign

To significantly boost Lumia’s brand positioning in the business market, with key targets for the campaign being:

• Increase consideration of Lumia by 14% amongst those exposed to the campaign

• Increase preference of Lumia by 4% amongst those exposed to the campaign

The campaign also needed to generate awareness through brand exposure across owned, earned and purchased channels and improve perception of Lumia against key brand attributes.


The target audience

We targeted IT and business decision-makers across public and private sector organisations as well as end-user influencers.

From previous programmes we knew that the barrier between business use and personal use of mobiles is increasingly blurred. iPhone made its way into business when executives realised that their personal iPhones were better than their corporate devices.

#OfficeLove turned this message around by using insight from existing Lumia users: when people try Lumia as their business phone, they realise it’s better than their personal phone.


Media, channels or techniques used

Market research and developing the creative approachWe worked with Kindle Research, who conducted interviews with existing Lumia business users. Research showed that 8 out of 10 people who were given Lumia for business use had chosen to use their work Lumia for personal use instead of their personal device.

Using this insight, we built a provocative creative platform around “8 out of 10 relationships start in the office”. On the back of this deliberately irreverent claim we constructed a multichannel campaign that transcended B2B and B2C boundaries in terms of channels and tactics to engage our decision-maker and end-user audience emotionally as well as rationally.

Channel strategyThe channels used are illustrated in the timeline (page 09) but in short we used:

DigitalA campaign microsite to host content and capture interest. Site interactions were tracked from their source so we could monitor people who interacted with content

A tease video to generate intrigue and buzz and a longer video to explain our insight

Display advertising – a mixture of standard MPU, leaderboard and premium formats such as interactive filmstrip, and homepage takeover. Ads were delivered across IT and SMB-targeted publications/communities initially, followed by a second cross-site retargeting campaign


Media, channels or techniques used

SocialTwitter, LinkedIn and Facebook campaigns to promote a series of customer competitions to actively engage the audience and amplify the campaign messaging

DM and emailInfographics explaining the campaign research and insight – printed for events and downloadable from the microsite

High-impact direct mail sent to Microsoft channel partners and Operator teams

eDM campaign sent to prospect database driving them to the microsite and to the competitions

ContentPaid editorial content across IT and SMB-focused sites, supported with content-relevant digital advertising

Case studies, brochures, opinion pieces and leave-behinds to engage decision-makers in more detail

Live events and telemarketingRoadshow events, competitions, incentives and training sessions at key call centre offices to expand coverage with our channel partners

Awareness Partner & operator engagementBuilding engagement

Mar 2015Oct 2014 Nov 2014 Dec 2014

Best multichannel campaign / #OfficeLove / The Marketing Practice / Microsoft Devices 01

Best multichannel campaign

Read by

Total engagement

21% uplift in brand consideration

Impressions873,750

of target engagements

Total engagement

174%

2,50030,000

10,000

Clicks/interactions1,883

Industry av. 0.06%0.22% CTR

Views5,324

Tease video

Reveal videoBuilding from tease video

Promotion through social media

Roadshows & incentives to build partner engagement

Building engagement with competitions

High value DM to partner channels

Display advertising

Reveal video

eDM1

Sponsored content

Sales enablement

eDM2

eDM 4

eDM3

8/10 relationships start in the office...Our research told us that...


Timescales of the campaignThe campaign spanned nine weeks, from October to December 2014


Budgets

The budget for the programme was split as follows:

• Campaign development and execution: 57%

• Media spend: 29%

• Partner incentive programme: 14%


Results

Microsoft carries out quarterly B2B brand research using an independent agency. They survey a cross-section of 500 business decision-makers and influencers and measure brand awareness, consideration and preference for Lumia and competitive brands as well as performance against key brand attributes and campaign awareness. This allowed us to measure Lumia’s brand health before and after the #OfficeLove campaign and identify the following results:

• 31% campaign recollection among IT decision-makers

• 21% uplift in brand consideration amongst those exposed to the campaign against a target of 14%. Over the same period the main competitors saw a decline in consideration of between 5% and 8%

• 12% uplift in brand preference against a target of 4%

• 8% increase in likelihood of organisations to evaluate Lumia in the next 12 months. Over the same period all other manufacturers decreased

• 10–15% improvement in product perception against 17 attributes including IT and end-user preference

#OfficeLove also played a major part in the wider Lumia Business Transformation Programme that helped raise business market share to 26%1 from a base level of 12%2 and closing the gap to the market leader.

Note 1: Source: http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/2015/03/20/microsoft-ready-for-major-consumer-war/

Note 2: Source: http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-announces-lumia-business-trial-campaign-for-uk-businesses/

21% uplift in brand consideration(target 14%)

12% increase in preference (target 4%)


Client testimonial

“Using some innovative techniques, we delivered something remarkable and strategically significant for Microsoft. Lumia has seen a dramatic market share increase in a very short period, and this campaign gave a significant boost to the consideration of the brand. #OfficeLove was brilliantly planned and executed, and has given us a very strong foundation to build on in 2015.”Angela Munroe, B2B Marketing Lead, UK, Microsoft Devices

microsoft #officelove 2015 - best brand initiative

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