Case Study - Outsmart Your Competition, Not Outspend
An established and growing computer services company was searching for unique ways to promote themselves. Their advertising efforts as well as those of their competitors were very serious in nature because they dealt with a very serious issue - the handling, manipulating and distributing of secure information.
PROBLEM:
They were growing, but the only way to reach more of their target market than their competitors was to outspend them in the same media. And since both their ads and their competitors ads looked very similar and included the same basic copy and stock photos, that meant simply outspending - larger ads, more frequency, more color, etc.The computer company decided to outsmart them all by breaking the unwritten "we are serious" rule...
SOLUTION:
They introduced a cartoon logo into their advertising, and completely redesigned everything, from their print ads to their website, to include the cartoon logo. They held an internal contest for employees only to design the cartoon logo. When the logo design was selected they held an external contest to name the new logo. All their marketing efforts included a mention of this contest, from their newsletter to a press release, from their website to print ads.
They had the winning employee designer create the logo in color for all their material - different poses for press release letterhead, newsletter header, corporate letterhead, envelopes, website uses... everything was redesigned.
The logo was also animated for the web, and since it was a simple design it was simple to animate, they could animate it for any use, any page, and any product. The designed worked for the company, so new poses and animation could be produced overnight.
RESULTS:
The results were astounding. It appeared that everyone was tired of the same-old-same-old, and the cartoon logo completely changed the rules! They took advantage of every opportunity to use the logo...
...A press release introducing the cartoon logo, and a month later a press release introducing the cartoon logo name and the winner of the name the logo contest.
...All advertising used the logo, but never the same pose twice. New poses were always created for new ads which were fast and simple since the artist was an employee.
...They created logo animation for their website using Movie Maker, and posted it to You Tube, then downloaded the final movie code and embedded it into their website. That also gave them exposure on You Tube and on their own site.
...The current newsletter was completely redesigned to include their cartoon character in a cartoon strip on the back page. The cartoon was then personalized to the receiver prior to mailing.
...For company picnics they had employees, vendors, customers and other attendees submit the names of their children. The names were used to create personalized coloring books featuring the cartoon character.
...Other uses over the first three years included t-shirts, sunglasses, Case Study letterhead and envelope, sweatshirts and hoodies, and many other promotional items, NONE with the same pose used twice.
Because of the unique nature of their advertising design and presentation they were not competing for space and frequency to get noticed. They reduced the size of their ads and dropped them to black and white, and cut frequency by 20% and their responses INCREASED 33%!
They learned their lesson well - get creative and GET NOTICED.