Influencer
Campaign

ALCATEL-LUCENT • SAP

How to Boost Brand Visibility by Honoring Leaders

IT network and enterprise communications professionals tend to be the unsung heroes of the customer experience. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) called upon TopRank Marketing to develop the first North American award program to recognize outstanding leaders in IT network and enterprise communications. The IT Vanguard Award was created to honor these leaders, while increasing brand visibility and audience engagement across key verticals. A two-phased campaign was developed to:

A panel of five judges featuring industry experts, influencers and one ALE executive was established to assess the nominations and select the honorees. The judges promoted both the call for nominations and the award winners through their networks of 90,000-plus connections.

Leveraging the industry influencers was key to the program’s success, as tapping into their networks helped amplify results on a limited budget. A custom-built, interactive landing page was the destination for both phases of the campaign. After the nomination period closed and honorees were selected, www.itvanguardawards.com was refreshed to showcase the 11 Vanguard Award winners along with judges’ commentary about industry.

playback point

Influencers deserve recognition.

Digital Platforms Help Spread the Word

Customer buying behavior is changing as the world moves to digital platforms. In fact, 80% of SAP’s customers want digital access — one with more transparency and a streamlined purchase path. For this reason, the SAP Digital Commerce team was established four years ago. It is a small, entrepreneurial business unit with the mission to make it simple for everyone to do business with SAP via new digital platforms. One of the digital properties managed by the SAP Digital Commerce team is SAP App Center, the digital marketplace where customers can discover, try, buy, manage and deploy more than 1,800 trusted partner applications. To raise awareness of the SAP App Center and its benefits, the SAP Digital Commerce team has been working with industry analyst Joshua Greenbaum, principal of Enterprise Applications Consulting, on a series of case studies exploring what success looks like with the SAP App Center for customers and partners.

Each case study highlights how SAP’s new online buying experience and associated assets help partners and customers be more successful by providing a commercial model that benefits all stakeholders. The primary goal is to help prospective partners understand the opportunity the new model presents and how it can drive their success. Additionally, the case studies and videos help educate customers as to the opportunities presented by the new digital buying experience, as well as help align SAP’s field sales team with the benefits of the program.