Title | Coffee |
Agency | Y&R New York |
Campaign | I Am Your Idea - Accenture |
Advertiser | Accenture |
Brand | Accenture |
Posted | July 2004 |
Business Sector | Consultants, Research & Analysis Companies |
Story | SUMMARY With the consulting category experiencing slowed growth due to the economic climate, the name of the game in this business has been to steal share from competitors. With many companies offering similar services, differentiation is the key to gaining awareness and consideration, the first step in the buying process. With the "I Am Your Idea" campaign, Accenture disrupted the consulting category by embracing the importance of clients' ideas in delivering innovation. Despite being vastly outspent by its largest competitor, Accenture achieved a 34% increase in projected bookings. |
Philosophy | CREATIVE STRATEGY Accenture wanted to capture attention with a simple campaign idea: Accenture helps turn your ideas into reality. The strategy essentially ties into the insight that clients can have ideas and visions as well as consultants and Accenture is the company that will collaborate with them to make great ideas happen. It offsets the target groups negative perceptions of consultants as someone who will force-feed their own ideas to clients and in the process of doing so can be perceived as arrogant and unable to deliver. OTHER COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAMMES - Global events program. - 49 case studies demonstrating how Accenture helped deliver their clients ideas. - Accentures corporate web site reinforced the advertising through client case studies and through leadership work. - An extensive internal communications campaign featuring employee webcasts, newsletters and training sessions motivated Accentures 75,000 partners and employees to live the new brand positioning. MEDIA - Broadcast - Out-of-Home MARKETS Pan Euro Media: CNN, CNBC Europe, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Financial Times, BBC World, European editions of Business Week, Forbes, Fortune and The Economist. TOTAL MARKETING EXPENDITURE Between 10 and 20 million. MEDIA STRATEGY Accentures proprietary research indicated that the elusive C-Suite target utilizes press as their primary source for business information. In addition, over half of Accentures target audience in Europe identifies magazines and newspapers as the medium where they recognize the Accenture brand the most. Based on this data, a significant portion of the media budget was allocated to print. Smaller percentages were then allocated to airport to reach the target while travelling, and to broadcast in order to generate immediate awareness of the Accenture campaign. The print and airport activity were scheduled across the entire fiscal year while the television activity was focused during the initial launch of the campaign only. |
Problem | CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES - Break through the clutter and get noticed, despite being outspent 8:1 on a global basis by the category leader. - Get Accenture on the target groups consideration list when they are thinking of companies to hire for large scale consulting engagements. - Achieve $12 billion in projected bookings for the fiscal year 2003. TARGET AUDIENCE The target is the crème de la crème of the corporate world. Those who are essentially responsible for hiring consultants typically reside in the upper most levels of large organizations, the so called C-Suite the CEO, CFO, CIO, CMO and strategic heads of various divisions in the corporate structure. CAMPAIGN PERIOD February 2002 to August 2003. |
Result | Despite being outspent substantially by its key competitor, Accenture managed to break through with a focused campaign coupled with a targeted media plan, increasing its global unaided brand awareness from 29% to 34%. (Source: Accenture Published Information) The share of the target group considering Accenture for their next consulting engagement was tripled. (Source:Global Awareness Tracking Study, December 2002) During the time the campaign ran, Accenture achieved $ 16,1 billion in bookings, a 34% increase compared to projected figures. (Source: Accenture Published Information) |
Media Type | |
Market | United States, Czech Republic, Poland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Spain |
Advertising Manager | Dan O'Brien |
Director of Advertising | Dan O'Brien |
Advertising Manager | Brian Harvey |
Director of Market Research | Brian Harvey |
Advertising Manager | Amy Oseland |
Advertising Manager | Gerald Gondek |
Advertising Specialist | Gerald Gondek |
Managing Partner | Chris Goodman |
Senior Partner | Dick Sinreich |
Partner | Katherine Cluff |
Senior Partner | Vic Capellugo |