Network Of The Year: Ogilvy

Non-Traditional
Interactive Installations

Finalist

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Entrant: Ogilvy & Mather Amsterdam, Amsterdam
IBM
"Aurora's Idea"
  • Corporate Name of Client:
    IBM
  • Client Account Director:
    Chantal de Lie
  • Agency Account Directors:
    Mariette Hamer
    Zilla Smith
    Lianne van der Meij-Rodewijk
  • Agency:
    Ogilvy & Mather Amsterdam , Amsterdam
  • Executive Creative Director:
    Darre van Dijk
  • Creative Director:
    Henk Nieuwenhuis
  • Copywriters:
    Henk Nieuwenhuis
    Joost van Nistelrooij
  • Art Directors:
    Bart te Riele
    Oscar Flinterman
  • Agency Producer:
    Brenda Bentz van den Berg
  • Production Manager:
    Frans Smit
  • Description of the Project:
  • With solutions for today’s challenges in traffic, energy, safety and more, IBM is striving towards a ‘Smarter Planet’ with solutions to make our world work better. A vision that goes beyond a mere business proposition. IBM wanted to get this vision across to leaders in business and government in the Netherlands. But due to a limited communications budget IBM can’t use mass media. So to have impact we needed to communicate it in a simple and compelling way. Not by telling, but by experiencing.
    Making the world work better starts by thinking in an unrestricted way about new solutions. Let our imagination as free as children do. To prove this we asked kids to come up with ideas to improve our lives. Aurora was one of them. She thinks it’s strange most drivers don’t stop at a zebra crossing. So she came up with the idea to make it light up when stepping on it. So cars will stop and everybody can cross the street safely. We wanted to realize this idea, capture people’s reactions and show it to the target audience.
    IBM is all about innovation and progress. Not only through technique, but also with original thinking in an unrestricted way. Children are a good example for doing that. And if IBM can make their ideas work, they can make everything work. Furthermore IBM is all about progress for the future, which of course will be our children’s world. And last but not least: we wanted to show an emotional side of a brand that is very much seen as cold and technological by appealing to people’s hearts as well as their brains. In every way we succeeded.
    To get it to the target audience, Aurora asked them to look at her idea in a personal way. We sent an eye-catching direct mail to a select group. We shot a separate video of Aurora, which we used for targeted banners. And we targeted the video directly via social media like Linkedin. The video was watched over 100.000 times. It inspired companies to share their ideas with IBM. The result? Revenue grew by 6% in a market that shrunk by 8%. And the good news for Aurora: six major cities are talking to IBM about her idea.