“A Culture of Possibility/Possible Now”

VMware Brand Advertising Campaign, 2017-2018

After a two-year hiatus from any brand advertising, VMware returned to the market with the “Culture of Possibility”/“Possible Now” campaign. Our goal was to build greater awareness of our brand value and technology portfolio with senior IT decision makers—and to do it with customer evidence. In 2017, year one of our return, we developed the creative and began the multi-year process of building out our brand go-to-market infrastructure and supporting data discipline.

Results

  • We launched our campaign in May 2017 in the US, followed by the UK in October 2017. Starting with $3M US in early 2017, our early success earned us more company investment, raising our total budget to $9M by year end.

  • In early 2018, we won an internal investment of $25M US annually, committed for four years.

  • With our expanded investment, we baselined all of our markets for current brand perception, and then relaunched in the US, UK and India in September 2018 with the new “Everyware” campaign.

Stats

  • Markets: US, UK

  • Audience: Senior IT decision-makers

  • Budget: $9M US in 2017, growing to $25M in 2018

Credits

  • Campaign Strategy: AJ Herrera and Karin Tanaka

  • Original Concept: Chapter Agency

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

  • Creative platform research: AJ Herrera, Susan Olsen, Chapter Agency

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

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

  • Visual creative: Susan Olsen, Molly Cover, Sally Gardner

  • Content marketing: Karin Tanaka, Cathy Luo

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

  • Production and operations: Cathy Luo, Karin Tanaka

  • Customer and partner recruiting: AJ Herrera, Karin Tanaka

  • Media planning and execution: AJ Herrera, Karin Tanaka, Cathy Luo, Just Global

  • Performance metrics and insights: Karin Tanaka, Cathy Luo, Just Global

  • Financial management: Karin Tanaka

  • Procurement: Catherine Jones, Tucker Bass, Bridget Whooley