Branded entertainment is often thought of as a bit of content that doesn’t directly reference the brand, or only does so to make the connection somehow at the last moment. So there is often the question of how well the content is really helping to support the brand. In this case, Glove and Boots clearly set up in the beginning of the video that it was, in fact, a commercial for HP. Or, at least, an attempted commercial. Using this as the concept helped us bridge the branding and entertainment gap. And it was done is such a disarming way that typical viewers not only watched the entire five minute and 40 second video, they commented positively on HP’s involvement, as well.

The campaign grew from an HP print ad with the headline, “No is a three-letter word.” That three-letter word? EMC, because of all the features HP offers that EMC can’t. To build on this idea, we ambushed the EMC World event in Las Vegas, which we positioned as “the Land of No,” with a dose of positivity. From the minute EMC World attendees arrived in Vegas, we were there to greet them with our “72 Hours of Yes” campaign, promising a world where they could tweet a request and, if they qualified, we’d say yes. We granted a huge range of “yesses” to EMC attendees — from Grand Canyon helicopter rides to Cirque du Soleil training to ink at the local tattoo parlor. For 72 hours, we said “yes” like there was no tomorrow. With only minor tweaks to handle so many real-time requests, the campaign positively delivered, exactly as planned.

With our “72 Hours of Yes” promotion, we were able to hijack EMC’s main event of the year, turning the spotlight delightfully onto HP. Within the first few hours of the conference, our Twitter handle gained hundreds of followers, many of whom happily tweeted requests. By the end of EMC World’s first day, #72hoursofyes became the most popular hashtag in EMC World’s word cloud. EMC World attendees enjoyed some very positive experiences, courtesy of HP, while getting a clear and relevant idea of HP’s value proposition. In just 72 hours, HP garnered 1,355,000 earned impressions, 591 mentions, 312 retweets and 263 new followers. Of course, the real coup was how we managed to grow HP’s business, right in the heart of its competitor’s flagship event. In fact, in its next quarter, HP’s market share jumped 1.4% and revenue increased 22.4% year over year, marking its highest sales in company history.