Eye-catching and creative: keys to success
SitexOrbis wins Construction Marketing Award
On 7th December 2012 the hard work and dedication of SitexOrbis’ marketing team was recognised when the company won a Construction Marketing Award for ‘Best Use of Events and Live Marketing’.
In the words of Debansu Das, Head of Marketing, SitexOrbis: “Our campaign re-emphasised the face that if a simple campaign is well-executed and thought upon, even traditional routes can deliver superb results.”
What Led SitexOrbis to win this award?
Back in 2011 SitexOrbis was in the midst of an acquisition by its direct competitor. Many people within the social housing marketplace did not see this as positive and worried about the future of the company. On top of this, the long lead time to get the requisite approval from the relevant authority made things worse. People began voting with their feet, and began thinking about taking their business elsewhere.
SitexOrbis needed to demonstrate that it held a strong place in the marketplace and irrespective of the proposed acquisition (whether it was happening or not), the company needed to show it was ‘business as usual’.
To do this, a campaign was devised to “make some noise in the industry” and stand out from the rest to maximise brand saliency and inspire customers to stick with SitexOrbis, whilst attracting new social housing customers. knowing the market preferred face-to-face communications, SitexOrbis decided to target the biggest industry event of the year: the all-important Housing 2012 Exhibition.
It was crucial for the company to stand out from the other 350 exhibitors by creating a concept that would deliver the desired message and create a buzz like never before. Realising that the event closely followed the jubilee celebrations, the marketing team knew this would be the perfect theme to base the stand on, and so a right royal celebration began.
The ingenious idea was to shape the stand like a castle, made to look realistic with turrets, battlements, bespoke wallpaper and even royal guards.
iPads were cleverly placed on the main back wall of the stand, displaying rolling videos of SitexOrbis’ products, which delegates watched while they queued for a royal photo.
Video screens displayed corporate videos and seating areas strategically placed around them with coffee served by a barista.
To generate interest, email and social media campaigns were run before the event, while afterwards all the photographs were sent to the prospects enabling further engagement.
The Queen, prince Willian and Kate were even invited (lookalikes, of course) to draw in delegates with the offer of a free photo (optional £1 donation).
This generated lengthy queues and raised over £500 which was doubled by SitexOrbis and donated to the Help the Heroes charity.
Finally, what royal event would be complete without the Crown Jewels? So SitexOrbis installed eye-catching rotating glass cabinets displaying mock Crown jewels (actually worn by the Queen), cleaverly placed within the company’s own ‘Crown Jewels” – its 13 prestigious awards.
The entire campaign sent a strong message to the industry that SitexOrbis was still committed to the industry, and was open for business as usual.
Following the campaign, a survey to stand visitors showed a 70% increase in the likelihood of people considering SitexOrbis when in a buying situation.
Furthermore, the company wanted to defend its sales and stop losing business. Following on from the campaign not only was this objective achieved, the company also managed to grow share of voice. That is what you call a right royal result
