Dan Kohn, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Pitney Bowes shares the results of the recent GyroHSR campaign with us.

Pitney Bowes had an identity problem. Weve been in business for nearly a century, have 2 million customers and 35,000 employees,and operate in 100 countries, yet few people can name more than one thing we do.

According to internal research, 83 percent of individuals associate Pitney Bowes with postage metering equipment. Weve grown through a series of acquisitions and our capabilities have expanded more rapidly than our clients and potential clients perceptions of us. Today, in addition to helping clients manage their mail productively, we also help them grow their businesses with relationship marketing, channel marketing, location intelligence, predictive analytics, operational intelligence and document management capabilities.

To put that into perspective, Home Depot uses our location intelligence technology to identify the best locations for its home centres. Cell phone companies use our technology to analyse traffi c patterns to determine where to place their cell towers. If youve used an online mapping tool to get directions, youve used us too. Not only have our capabilities expanded beyond the mailroom, but our key audiences have grown as well. We still target mailroom and office managers, but our new capabilities demand we target senior executives, IT professionals, marketing professionals, small/medium businesses and business operations professionals.

Our challenge was that these individuals tend to automatically dismiss us or refer us to the mailroom based on their preconceived perceptions that Pitney Bowes only offers metering services. Thats why we engaged GyroHSR to help us break through the mail only perception.

Campaign Began with Research
Aside from our initial research that uncovered how various audiences perceive Pitney Bowes and our offerings, we also launched a joint audience study with GyroHSR to identify the purchase decision cycle within the various audience segments with which we wanted to connect. This study provided insight into how these audiences collect information prior to purchases and who actually made the purchasing decisions.

We also conducted creative testing that provided feedback on how these segments would react to various marketing messages and creative concepts. This testing helped us zero in on the most relevant and appealing creative approach.

Armed with this information, GyroHSR created the Theres a lot more here than you think campaign. GyroHSRs campaign for us used interactive and traditional elements and included industry-specific images, such as a tree with an extensive root system, a suspension bridge and a bouquet of flowers all emerging from an open envelope. The various images, and the accompanying messaging, were metaphors for the new capabilities we offered, while the envelope represents our heritage mailing business.

Each symbolic image and call to action communicates to a different audience: the tree to IT professionals, the bridge to business operations professionals, and the bouquet of flowers to marketing professionals and small-business operators. The varying creative elements speak to different audiences, but they all share a unifying theme something not typically found in an envelope captures the readers attention and visually connects the image to the key message.

Each ad contained the headline, Theres a lot more here than you think and directed readers online to the Pitney Bowes Connection Center, (www.pbconnect.com), our online resource that delivers proof of the companys new capabilities through webinars, testimonials, case studies and white papers.

A Successful Campaign
The campaign marked a paradigm shift for Pitney Bowes as we took our story directly to existing and potential customers instead of communicating with the business press. Were currently conducting follow-up research to determine how much the campaign has raised awareness and changed perceptions, but weve already seen positive results.

In the first three months of the campaign, we experienced a surge in traffic to the Pitney Bowes Connection Center, including 30,000 unique visitors, 50,000 page views and 20 million impressions. Weve engaged new strategic audiences; two-thirds of site visitors are from the IT, marketing or senior executive audience segment; and nine out of 10 of the top-viewed items are beyond our core mail offerings. The campaign also received tremendous feedback internally. Our employees were excited that Pitney Bowes was aggressively telling its story. They knew it was the right time to come out swinging, and thats what we did.

Weve integrated the campaigns visual elements throughout our organisation. They appear in our sales collateral and have even infi ltrated our trade-show booth, with a large sailboat coming out of an envelope. We also integrated the theme into our industry events and social causes, including the WNBA literacy program.

We werent the only ones excited about the creative approach. The effort won best integrated campaign by the Business Marketing Association and was also featured in BtoB magazine, a leading business-to-business marketing trade publication.