According to Selwyn Newman, general sales manager at MWEB Business the brief to Ogilvy was a simple one. “We wanted to do something where MWEB Business could dominate within our chosen market and found that the Internet was one platform where we could easily do that. Ogilvy has used the medium an innovative way that sets our campaign apart from other online adverts.”
Ryan Laubscher, account director at Ogilvy Cape Town says, “MWEB Business products are targeted at IT managers, so our scenarios needed to leverage off the age-old human truths that exist in the dynamic between ‘IT guys' and ‘management'. Hugely successful television programmes such as “The Office” have demonstrated that there is an amazing amount of humour at play between suit-wearing office-bearers and ‘the guys in the basement', and our video executions take their tongue-in-cheek lead from this battle between ties and techies.”
MWEB Business has positioned itself as "The IT department behind your IT department" demonstrating its ability to provide professional, valuable and practical IT solutions and support. Ogilvy created video banners for five MWEB Business products/services including Hosted Exchange, VPN's, Hosting (Database / Server / Website) and VoIP. They were created to give consumers and potential customers a visual and tangible reference for MWEB Business' products and services with the intention of positioning MWEB as a leading provider of business solutions in the corporate IT space.
Laubscher says that because of the growth of broadband Internet, South Africans are consuming more video online than ever before, as can be seen by the proliferation of video viral clips flooding inboxes, the global success of YouTube and the growth of local video sites such as Zoopy.com.
“Whilst Americans have been using video in banners for the last couple of years, local bandwidth concerns have prevented us from considering video banners prior to this campaign,” he says.
Video banners have a number of benefits right now. Firstly, as video banners are still unusual in South Africa, they can still incite curiosity, which encourages interaction. They can also deliver complex messages and scenarios that would be almost impossible in other mediums,” Laubscher continues.
The banners link through to individual microsites (which will go live soon) that outline the details of each of the products or services being showcased. This online campaign also includes a comprehensive pay-per-click (PPC) campaign and these banners form the visual aspect.
Click here to view the videos: http://www.youtube.com/mwebsa.
