“Everyware”

VMware Brand Advertising Campaign, August 2018—March 2021

With the successful 2017 relaunch of VMware’s brand advertising program, our team received a four-year commitment of $25M for 2018 through 2021. We decided to go bigger with video-first omnichannel media and new creative, while keeping what had become a beloved tagline—“Realize What’s Possible.”

We built the campaign around customers and the business outcomes they realize with our “wares.” Leading with high-impact stories and showing how VMware helped, we paid off the singular idea that “a digital foundation built on VMware accelerates innovation without disruption.”

Results

  • Our primary KPI for the campaign continued to be brand perception shift.

  • Over the course of the campaign, our average brand perception lift among ad-aware respondents (vs. unaware) was 10, 26 and 30 percentage points, respectively, in the US, the UK and India.

  • In 2020, due to the pandemic, we pivoted out of airport advertising and launched linear TV advertising for the first time. Surveying our US audience immediately before and again immediately after our TV run, we saw a 15 percentage point lift in brand perception among ad-aware respondents.

Stats

  • Markets: US, UK, India

  • Audience: Senior IT decision-makers; CXO business decision makers

  • Annual Budget: $25M US

Credits

  • Campaign strategy: Karin Tanaka, AJ Herrera

  • Original Everyware concept: DDB

  • Concept development, art direction: Susan Olsen, Molly Cover

  • Creative platform research: Karin Tanaka, AJ Herrera, Susan Olsen, PSB Research

  • Positioning, messaging and copywriting: Karin Tanaka, AJ Herrera, Wendy Kaplan, Greg Thomas

  • Creative ideation: Karin Tanaka, AJ Herrera, Susan Olsen, Molly Cover, Wendy Kaplan, Jef Tyler

  • Visual creative: Susan Olsen, Molly Cover, Jef Tyler, Sally Gardner, First Person

  • Content marketing: Karin Tanaka, Cathy Luo, Linda Leung, Greg Thomas

  • Website production: Cathy Luo, Karin Tanaka, Houston Berry, Aquent

  • Production and operations: Cathy Luo, Tara Hill

  • Customer and partner recruiting: Karin Tanaka, AJ Herrera

  • Media planning and execution: Karin Tanaka, Cathy Luo, EssenceMediacom

  • Performance metrics and insights: Karin Tanaka, PSB Research

  • Financial management: Karin Tanaka, Tara Hill, Dragomir Dachev, Priya Thakur

  • Procurement: Catherine Jones, Tucker Bass, Bridget Whooley