Who: GSoft with lg2 for strategy and creative, with Dialekta for media.
What: “Dear Canada,” a new B2B advertising campaign targeting potential GSoft clients (nearly 60 in total) with personalized letters of introduction. It’s a departure for the software brand, with previous marketing largely focused on content marketing and SEO.
When & Where: The ads targeted companies in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal earlier this month, using a combination of wild postings, digital out-of-home, and social media (with a particular emphasis on LinkedIn). The company also ran ads in and around Toronto’s Pearson International Airport this week, targeting business leaders from companies coming into the city for this week’s Collision tech conference. The main executions have been compiled in a 60-second video that is running on paid social until July 8.
Why: The goal is to increase the business community’s awareness of GSoft, whose products are used by 15,000 clients in more than 100 countries for employee onboarding, employee engagement, and IT.
“We’re trying to do stuff around awareness that you’d more typically expect from a [consumer] brand,” said Jean-Frédéric Daigneault, lead brand strategist with GSoft in Montreal.
“The market that we’re in is booming… and we felt we had an awareness deficit in Canada,” said Daigneault. “We’ve been in business for 15 years and are quite successful, but nobody really knows it.”
Daigneault said “Dear Canada” could also work as both internal marketing and an employee recruitment campaign. “By being engaging and fun, people might actually [want] to work for us a bit more… And even internally, people might feel pride in working for a company [willing to engage in this type of marketing]. It helps on so many fronts.”
How: All of the creative assets feature messages specifically tailored to organizations that GSoft is trying to reach.
A message to A&W, for example, reads “Our software isn’t plant-based or grass-fed, but you’ll love it anyway,” while a message to CN reads “We know just how to get your new employees on track and on board.” GSoft also used mobile billboards to deliver messages outside the offices of companies including TD Bank, Canadian Tire and The Brick. The idea was to be “strategically present” at places frequented by the business community.
And we quote: “When a client is brave enough to get behind concepts that push the envelope, it really makes you want to roll up your sleeves. We went with an approach that is more in your face without being objectionable.” — Maxime Jenniss, creative director, lg2
