“The "Day Made of Glass' video was a surprise breakout. We originally created this video for Corning's top executives to use as a conversation starter with some of the biggest product design and R&D organizations on the planet. Agencies know that when you have a discussion with clients, you can't architect a viral video. You can't guarantee that it will go viral. That's part of the mystique. We previewed it with a few hundred people who tend to be very chatty in terms of blogging and engaging in social media. That turned out to be a strategic place to start, with all the technology in there that is appealing to people. It's not that far out there. There is no voice-over, and you get to project yourself into it. This fits into the overall corporate communications efforts to demonstrate new applications of Corning glass and fiber optics that make these types of possibilities real. [The video received more than 17 million YouTube views.]”
—JOHN MANNION,
director-client relations, Doremus, San Francisco
“There is a lot of technology marketing out there, and a lot of it is very smart. In order to make a difference [for CDW] and really cut through the clutter, we wanted to bring it down to a human level that is very relatable. We tried to think about the tangible problems every business has—from security threats to data-loss prevention—and turn it into, "What would the problem be like at the North Pole?' For example, having reindeer in the server room getting tangled up in the wires still resembles a real business problem. In order to test the concept, we used our own IT staff. Our IT person is Larry Gordon, and the video did so well, we kept "Larry, the IT elf' for the campaign. In the campaign, Larry tweets about his problems [such as frozen computers], and there are case studies [www.northpoleitelves.com] that show how CDW solves different technology problems. We also launched two TV commercials during "Monday Night Football.' [The video received almost 1 million YouTube views.] ”
—CHARLES BRANDL, managing supervisor, Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago
