Powwownow
An award-winning advertising campaign which proves that B2B doesn't have to be boring.
One of the UK's leading conference calling companies came to us to pitch for their annual marketing activity after feeling their previous agency had become a little stagnant.
Myself and copywriting partner Angus locked ourselves away in a room for a few days to come up with some refreshing concepts including one around a satirical character we invented called Cecil Goldwell.
It didn't take the client long to decide on a winning idea, they knew they were onto something with this one and were more than willing to roll with some risky creative.
After going though a fun casting process we chose actor Michael Parkhouse to embody the character of Cecil. Bringing our character to life brilliantly, Michael recorded radio adverts and joined us on a 2 day photography shoot.
Deliberately designed to mock the elite, Cecil was crass, offensive and out of touch, commenting on current affairs, TV programmes and more to cut through all the noise of advertising, and it really worked.
The campaign was rolled out across daily press ads in the Metro newspaper in major cities in the UK, on the London Underground, on social media and on radio - causing quite a stir. Cecil received high praise from fellow marketers and those that got the joke but anger from people who didn't understand the satire with some even graffitiing posters.
Relishing this criticism and riding on a wave of noise around the campaign I designed and built a Facebook game with a classic whack-a-mole mechanic where you could take out your anger on Cecil, thumping him on the head with a hammer as he shouts profanities at you from his cash filled manor house.
Our More Sense than Money campaign helped Powwownow achieve a 138% increase in website traffic, a 92% increase in registrations and a 34% increase in revenue. The campaign was featured in B2B Marketing Magazine, The Drum, theMarketer magazine, across countless marketing websites, blogs and on twitter. It came runner up for 'Best SME-targeted campaign' at the B2B awards and received an award from adForum.
Agency: Gyro
Client: PowWowNow
Creative Direction: Peter Davis
Concept / Design & Art Direction: Arron Tierney
Concept / Copywriting: Angus Prior
Photography: Paul Moffat
Talent: Michael Parkhouse