A cryptic campaign from Echoworx and Grey

Who: Grey Canada and email encryption service Echoworx.

What: “Keep your business, your business,” a new global B2B campaign with a focus on the North American and European markers.

When & Where: The campaign broke this week across film, print and digital display.

Why: The campaign is designed to convey a message about the importance of preventing data breaches, while at the same time dispelling the notion among its business audience that investing in encryption technology is complicated and costly.

Research found that consumers are increasingly worried about how businesses are treating their personal information, and if they weren’t confident a company was working to ensure their privacy, they would look elsewhere.

“It was clear that in more ways than one, it pays to be secure,” said Ian Westworth, Grey’s senior VP, head of planning and effectiveness.

How: The creative approach is built around a simple idea: nobody needs to know your business.

A 30-second anchor spot shows two businessmen fresh off a game of tennis talking about a proposal one man sent to the other, except their discussion is characterized by their repeated use of encryption codes like “D7X974” and “seven, four, eight, nine, two, percentage point, dollar sign, bracket, HP 4968” to refer to sensitive business information.

That concept is extended in full page newspaper ads featuring headlines such as “Your company’s acquisition plans include 4/*8@Xg>7bS” and a digital banner that begins with a completely undecipherable string of letters, numbers and symbols that eventually resolves to indicate how much ROI a company can receive by investing in email data encryption.

And we quote: “We knew the ROI story rationally had appeal with business leaders. But we also know that emotion would be critical to developing a truly effective campaign. Our challenge was to create a big idea that would appeal to both the head and the heart.” — Lorena Magee, vice-president of marketing, Echoworx

 

Chris Powell