Sify Technologies - Innovation in Marketing or Sales Literature
Name of Organization / Company: Sify Technologies Limited
Category: Award for Innovation in Marketing or Sales Literature
Entry Title: Reading a book is good for your eyes and our business
The premise was simple.
Reading a book is good for your eyes and business.
So, how do you tell the story of India's largest ICT player without using any of the regular communication tools?
It was Sify’s 20th year of listing on the NASDAQ and we chose to stand clear in our instruments and delivery. We chose to look afresh at reading material, thus giving birth to the idea of a graphic novel style coffee table book
Challenge:
Historically, the B2B industry relies on case studies, electronic mailers, opt-in mailers, event touch points, and conferences. The problem with these tools is that they are either optional or secured/stopped by firewalls, causing a communication fallout. In recent years, open rates for mailers have fallen to drastic levels.
The objective, therefore, was to create an un-put-downable tool of communication which would reminisce the past, provide the present context, and display the company’s future capabilities.
Note: Our target audience is business analysts, financial analysts, CTOs, and CEOs in their early 40s to 60s,giving us a chance to tickle their fancy through a flashback into their adolescence. As decision makers, they are responsible for a team of technologists or bankers who have to weigh the appropriateness, viability and fit of every solution. Being accountable goes with the territory, much like Raj in the book.
1. By going old school, we were assured of a physical touch point with our audience, the financial institutions and investors.
2. We deliberately made the book larger than A4 standard format so that it would stand out and start a conversation around the book and the company. This worked because the target audience was expecting an industry standard Power point presentation with financial numbers.
3. When they flipped the pages expecting to find client stories, they were pleasantly surprised to see a comic book which did not trivialize the achievements of the company. On the contrary (based on customer feedback) they found that the client projects were intelligently sewn into the narrative of the story. We avoided the lure to be verbose and let the book do the talking.
Research, Planning & Execution
The book was hand-drawn by a team of four illustrators and two colorists over a period of 6 months.
Each story was vetted for the following:
- Relevance
-Intelligence
- Brevity
- Conclusion
- Continuity
The original draft was 108 pages and featured 12 clients. This was shrunk to its current size of 48 pages keeping in mind the reader’s attention span.
Measurable Results:
- The second print ran in under a month
- Th largest bankers and our consortium leaders asked for multiple copies of the book
- Clients asked to be a part of the sequel
- We got an audience which is primarily absorbed in their laptops to read a traditional book.
The original run of 350 full format limited print runs was overrun in the first 6 months. In order to keep the novelty factor, we stopped with a second run of 200 copies.
Note: Only a low resolutions copy is being uploaded here.FINAL VERSION PDF.pdf