The Challenge
First
– how do you build on LG’s ‘Life’s Good’ consumer branding and ethos
but migrate it to the altogether more hard-bitten environment of the
channel? How do you convince a “heard it all
before” audience that this company really does want to build long-term
and fruitful relationships with partners? LG was putting a genuine opportunity on the table, but how do you put this across without too much hype and hyperbole?
Next, bearing in mind that the technology channel is deep and wide, some serious profiling needed to take place. LG needed to define its targets to ensure investment in the launch was maximised.
The Response
Whiteoaks
began by facilitating a ‘Partner Profiling Workshop’ to ensure the
right potential partners were being invited. Mindful of LG’s ‘Life’s
Good’ branding, Whiteoaks suggested an event that would be informative,
but also great fun. The venue – the super cool
Saatchi Gallery – was chosen to reflect LG’s reputation for cutting-edge
design and invitations and a pre-event website were themed to intrigue.
The
venue and timings gave scope for LG to showcase its products in an
informal setting before the main presentations of the evening. These were scripted by Whiteoaks – as were all continuity announcements to ensure a smooth and upbeat pace to proceedings. To add third party endorsement, a key customer was invited to present their case study too.
A
touch of glamour and excitement came from two guest speakers – Nick
Hewitt, known as one of Alan Sugar’s advisers on BBC TV’s The Apprentice
and comedian and star of Mock the Week, Dara O’Brien.
To
fully maximise the venue and organisational effort, a press lunch was
held on the same day for channel, technology and business journalists.
Whiteoaks had already media-trained all key LG spokespeople to ensure
consistent messaging.
The Result
There followed an intensive follow up campaign by Whiteoaks. This
included the writing and placing of opinion leadership articles about
LG’s intentions in the channel plus contacting potential partners who
had been unable to attend
Knowing
that the benefits of an event such as this can often go unmeasured, LG
and Whiteoaks set rigorous targets to evaluate the success of the entire
project. Not only did these include the numbers of resellers and media
attending the day, but also the amount of press coverage generated by
the campaign plus – the event’s bottom line – the number of potential
channel partners who ‘signed up’ on the night and immediately
afterwards.
Whiteoaks exceeded all these targets. From
the press perspective, 14 journalists attended which meant LG reached a
‘total’ circulation of 283,917. Over 100 partners attended the event –
and Whiteoaks smashed the 250-300 target of actual partner leads,
delivering over 500, attracted by its pre-event marketing, follow up and
press campaigns.