Telkom VR campaign targets chief information officers

© Wren Handman via Pixabay

“One of the insights that helped us develop this campaign,” said iKineo business unit director, Manfred Noriskin-Ender, “is that in economically difficult times, businesses cut budgets and departments such as marketing and research are the first to get the chop.

“We also realised that we would not be able to get CIOs to an event and, in the era of digitalisation, we built on the concept of taking these key individuals out of the office, without taking them out. We had to address their challenge of having to deal with multiple vendors and the inherent problems of integration and communication that come with digitalisation integration.

“Understanding the customer is the central component in any campaign, we tapped in and conceptualised this campaign using Virtual Reality (VR) to get the so-called ‘face-time’ and provide qualitative research that they’d find valuable.”

Staying relevant to Telkom Business Connexion's above-the-line brand positioning, which is "Meet your future customer. Today.", iKineo partnered with HDI Youth Marketeers to develop a structured and objective research component. Youngsters (I.e. future customers) across two LSM groups, aged 9-13 and 14-18 were commissioned through a rigorous process.

The youth were asked pointed questions looking at different verticals (industry sector) with a specific focus on banking, education, retail, healthcare and service delivery. The unscripted and unedited research was shot as a 360-degree view on a modern rooftop in Johannesburg. The shoot was also used to generate more content by including multiple experiences across each segment. In each film, different visual points of interest were added such as a juggler, drone, balloon artist, a stilt-walker to create a more immersive experience.

The VR content is shared by means of VR headsets and is used to create a strategic talking point for the account manager and to add value by sharing relevant research. Customers choose the content they want to see. This interaction allows a digital readiness assessment to drive customers to view other content.

“The additional content that was shot was repurposed for digital platforms, such as social media and the website. Supporting the video content were tailor-made opinion pieces for each segment, which are housed on the website, ensuring that we provided not just an engaging experience but a deeply immersed content experience that gave CIO a point of view with real substance,” concludes Noriskin-Ender.

The campaign will run for the rest of the year.