'Train your business brain' runner up best brand campaign for Sage

Software solutions provider Sage supplies software and services to over 760,000 small and medium sized businesses in the UK.

Challenge

Rather than generate immediate sales, Sage wanted to protect future growth of the business. The varied nature of its customer base meant that it needed to go beyond traditional B2B media and talk in way that would appeal to anyone in business, many of whom would not call themselves business people.

Solution

It launched a 'Business Brains' campaign, at the heart of which was its sponsorship of the Krypton Factor. Sage persuaded ITV1 to let it fund its comeback and give it a business twist, after specially commissioned research showed it to be the third most requested show to return to ITV1.

A dedicated website formed part of the wider campaign - featuring games to give visitors a Business IQ score and videos of well known entrepreneurs.Content from the show and games was also seeded online and via a special partnership with LinkedIn - users could share their scores on specially created LinkedIn leagues.