Businesspeople don’t have time to contend with “cool” online technology. Flash and other rich media doesn’t dazzle them. They want marketers to get right to the point or they click elsewhere.
Microsoft exploded that theory in a rich media campaign it ran for its new Tablet PC.
“Because it was not just a new product, but a new product category, we realized we had to go after influential businesspeople,” says Dane Hulquist, director of interactive strategy at MRM Partners, the agency that handled Microsoft’s campaign.
To reach the target audience, MRM teamed with CBS MarketWatch.com. To show the power of the product, the ad mimicked the product.
As users logged onto CBS MarketWatch, they saw a pop-up that formed itself into an animated thumbnail sketch of a screen on which a stylus is magically writing and drawing. A slogan appeared: “The future is here. Tablet PC.” Then, the CBS MarketWatch home page materialized, showing a stylus inking all over it. The inking faded quickly away and the user could read the articles on the site.
Viewers received different calls to action, including a sweepstakes sign-up and a Microsoft e-newsletter registration.
About 100,000 people subscribed to the e-newsletter, and the effort delivered double-digit lifts in product awareness, Hulquist says.
Why was the ad successful? Because even though it was rich media, it only ran for eight seconds and showed the benefits of the product immediately, says Hulquist and Scot McLernon, executive vice president of sales and marketing at CBS MarketWatch.
“We had very few complaints from viewers,” says McLernon. But when he explained to those who complained that the ad was cookie-generated to appear just one time per user each week, they usually dropped their complaints.
“There’s a fine line you have to walk between intrusiveness and impact,” says Bill Wreaks, managing director of Doremus Media Group. “They say you can never be too rich or too thin, but in B-to-B, it’s about enriching their experience. You can be too rich.”
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