142 The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World
The original campaign was focused on the United States, but due to its
success and widespread appeal it was adapted and rolled out in Brazil, Singa-
pore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam, Spain, the UK,
the Czech Republic and Germany.Lessons
Choosing the right mix of channels to get the message across to your audi-
ence is crucial to any digital marketing campaign. Using e-mail as a starting
point was a smart move for a company like IBM with a well-established opt-in
list of IT managers looking for enterprise-class software solutions – a decision
vindicated by the impressive open rates and click through rates the campaign
achieved. By directing e-mail traffic to a custom interactive landing page,
using a very amiable character in Mr Fong and building a narrative that people
could identify with, the campaign took a relatively dry technical subject (soft-
ware to help with software development) and added a human dimension to it- turning the discovery of a software product into a quest to help Mr Fong in
his hour of need.
While it is important to tailor your message to the requirements of your audi-
ence, if you can do it in a way that adds a human dimension and weaves a
story around your product, service or brand using characters and/or people
your audience can identify with, it is much more likely to resonate with them.Marketers, it’s about the pet fish, and the fact that IBM know it was a fish,
and that there was only one fish named Mr Fong! The point is, by understand-
ing exactly what it is you want, how you are going to measure it, and then
comparing the results with clear objectives, you can quickly identify the
success or otherwise of your campaign. We love the fact IBM knew the
benchmarks as well as the results. Let’s face the facts: this isn’t the most
interesting subject matter on the planet, but IBM at least proved that it isn’t
rocket science either.