B2C sensibilities transform B2B campaign, with bespoke Summertime illustrations
Discover how a B2C marketing approach, which tapped into an emotional decision-making process, paid dividends for OutSystems
Summary
OutSystems’ goal was to reach a holiday audience looking to take a staycation in Q3 2021, when travel abroad was still affected by COVID. The target audience was IT decision-makers, developers, and architects.
We designed a strategic, omni-channel, lead-generation campaign that far exceeded expectations. Supported by a series of innovative, eye-catching ads, incorporating bespoke illustrations from our creative team. This was infused with the warmth of summer and bucked the trend for what is usually seen in the B2B market – the results were impressive.
Exceeded LinkedIn benchmarks
Campaign impressions
Qualified leads
Who is OutSystems?
OutSystems empowers nearly 500,000 community members to innovate through software. Their modern application platform’s high productivity, connected, and AI-assisted tools help developers rapidly build and deploy a full range of applications anywhere the organization requires. With a growing base of active customers, strategic partners, and technology alliances across 87 countries and 22 industries, OutSystems is helping organizations make a strategic difference in their business through modern software development.
We love a challenge
2021 was a difficult year for everyone. As organizations were slowly emerging from their forced Covid-hibernation into an unrecognizable business landscape, one thing was clear – life as we knew it had changed irrevocably. Those companies that wanted to stay ahead of the curve and their competition knew that this strange new world called for a radical rethink right across the board, including the way they communicated with their audiences.
Our client, OutSystems, was one of those, and needed to find a new way to get closer to their clients and prospects. The question was – how could they re-engage with their audience and stand out from the competition in the process?
A winning solution
To begin with, we undertook a market analysis to understand the trends, and what was driving their target audience of IT decision-makers, developers, and architects. We evaluated the competition and proposed a strategic omni-channel campaign focused on generating leads across the EMEA region amongst the two audience groups.
The channels we proposed to the client included LinkedIn, Facebook, email marketing, content syndication, content hubs, and media partner activity. All the content was grouped thematically into the four service areas OutSystems offers:
- Modernization on the horizon
- The road to automation
- Drive innovation
- Ride the transformation wave
In order to ensure OutSystems stood out from its competitors, we wanted to create a visual identity for the campaign that would achieve this fundamental goal. Our award-winning creative team came up with a concept designed to buck the trend of traditional B2B marketing. Working closely with the client, the combined aim was to develop a vibrant, nostalgic, and seasonal tone that would tap into a summer vibe and provide an antidote to the gloomy lockdown-related content the competition was producing.
The team developed a campaign, aptly titled ‘Transform this Summer’, aimed at capturing a disengaged audience over a summer period who, despite the context of COVID-19, would be thinking of staycations – and in some cases trips abroad.
The eye-catching campaign, with bespoke illustrations by the hand of Just Global’s associate creative director, Josh Scott, made innovative use of the OutSystems logo as a sunset on the horizon – offering the promise of a bright future for its customers.
Once every now and then you find that sweet spot, an idea that you love and is ‘out there’, and a client enthusiastic about elevating their brand. Our concept, driven by creative passion and a sense of nostalgia proved it’s worth, delivering some incredible results. Crafting this campaign was an incredible experience every step of the way.”
The illustrations took inspiration from 1930s British Railways posters which are strongly associated with that nostalgic, summer holiday feeling, enticing the viewer to enjoy the ride and the destination.
Everything was connected thematically to the four service areas listed above.
The creative was repeated across the chosen platforms for a unified voice to the campaign, and channels were updated weekly.
“This campaign makes me remember what I love about getting to do something really exciting and out of the constraints of day-to-day marketing and be creative again."
Exceptional Results
After being live for three months, the campaign delivered results that were significantly higher than expected, exceeding forecasted LinkedIn CTR by 106% and delivering 700k campaign impressions, and over 250 leads.
There was also excellent ad engagement and exceptional on-page conversion rates.
To Recap
The ‘Transform This Summer’ campaign was recognized at the 2022 dotComm Awards and at the Creativepool Awards.
The campaign’s remarkable results show how powerful bespoke creative can be in capturing the target audiences, and having the right content appear in front of them at the right time.
Inspiration comes in many guises, and one of the ways our creative time got into the summer vibe was listening to this Spotify playlist they created for this campaign.
NORTH AMERICA
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EUROPE
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