Pressure on businesses to reduce their carbon footprint is ever mounting and coming from all angles: consumers, governments, shareholders and the media. Despite this, few businesses prioritise green initiatives in their overall business strategy. Why? They are not of the mindset that what is good for the planet can also be good for business.In promoting IBM Carbon Management Consulting Solutions, a message needed to be sent that IBM could help companies find business value in tackling their carbon footprints.

Three viral videos were created for the “Fight Carbon” campaign. Each showed a graffiti artist removing dirt to create art. These outstanding artworks illustrated how reducing carbon could help businesses create value. The creative style of producing a positive (something of value/art) out of something negative (dirt) was a perfect representation of the core message: under the carbon, there’s value.

The videos were then launched. Firstly they were released exclusively to decisive digital influencers from selected networks. Shortly after, they were opened up to a larger audience through the web & other channels, to reach the target audience. The digital influencing strategy started a conversation and raised awareness between the relevant audience & IBM by generating a successful buzz.

The goal was to generate awareness of IBM’s holistic Carbon Management Solutions, which demonstrated how, across an entire organisation, they could help unlock value for the company through the reduction of carbon. Through their offerings and this communication another secondary objective was to better the brand image in the eyes of consumers. Success was dependent on the capacity to trigger curiosity among a broader audience than just the target: corporate decision makers and influencers.

A viral communication strategy engaged digital influencers throughout Europe and opened up the conversation around IBM’s green solutions.

Social media was used to further extend the reach of the campaign, already in traditional advertising. The videos were first seeded through influential bloggers. They then took off through video sharing sites and social media networks (YouTube, Facebook, etc.). Continuous monitoring of the conversation complemented any paid media advertising. This allowed the team to spot new conversations keep track of the tonality, spot trends and monitor progress. To create more impact with the conversation, key words were analysed and used in paid search, using the conversation itself to optimise search requests.

Each conversation opportunity was analysed, relayed and linked to other local digital influencers. This helped put like-minded bloggers in touch. This strategy was also applied to media channels focused on business & green. The campaign intrigued some influential journalists who wrote about IBM’s solutions.

Within the first 2 weeks, the viral communication generated a strong organic buzz in the targeted social media.

The results below reflect activity between Oct. 1st/Jan 31st:o 9000 Videos viewed on video sharing sites o More than 55 articles posted from UK, Italy, Spain, France, Portugal influencers.

o The tone was 80% positive (“surprising from IBM”, “original”, “edgy”…)o Postings on social content bookmark sites, (Twitter, Wordpress.com) equally impressed as these were not our original targeto Excellent organic ranking allowed the IBM fight carbon initiative to come up top on major search engines including Google, yahoo, msn search etc.

o The viral campaign landing page generated 5,289 visits during the same 2 week period.The results were breakthrough for IBM with more than 27000 hits and 1500 thought leadership downloads in the first month. There are now 473 conversations about the campaign generated by citizens worldwide.

As a part of IBM’s “Fight Carbon” communications campaign, three short films were created communicating on green solutions in an unorthodox way through clean graffiti. This approach shows a mural artist cleaning dirty walls using only water, unveiling artistic murals which illustrate the advantages of going green. A landing experience supported and furthered understanding of the campaign message and gave valuable proof points of IBM’s commitment to sustainability as well as to those of their clients.

Innovative methods and channels of communication only reinforced IBM’s strategy. The digital influencing strategy kicked off an enormous conversation on IBM’s wealth of solutions and capabilities. By pushing the idea virally, we were able to create PR, worth more than traditional advertising. These films were subsequently distributed through PR channels, word of mouth all linked to the campaign landing page, where the target audience searched for ways in which their business could ‘go green’.

IBM wanted to position itself as a leader in services which help companies in reducing their carbon footprint. Through 40 years of IBM expertises in the green space, they could provide unparallelled expertise to locate, analyse and act on any area of a business that is creating more than its fair share of carbon, and convert it into a business opportunity or value. In order to promote these solutions, the communication channel needed to be just as innovative and cutting-edge. Therefore a digital influencing strategy was created and implemented to create the desired: “I didn’t know IBM did that” effect.