case study
Ricoh – SXSW
Ricohmania @ SXSW
RICOH USA wants to promote its suite of intelligent business solutions and cloud-based digital services to businesses everywhere. RICOH [yes, that RICOH] can do much more to improve business performance than many people realize. In short, RICOH can take any enterprise’s data (wherever it lives), secure it, unlock powerful insights, and turn it into useful information to help its customers realize operational efficiencies, enhance customer service, and grow revenue. RICOH’s marketing team invited us to create an engaging experiential marketing strategy to accompany their new TMI brand campaign. To help RICOH gain more visibility, we presented a simple idea: RICOH should post up in the heart of fun and exciting innovation at SXSW to connect with tech-savvy millennials. We called our creative strategy RICOHMANIA explaining that RICOH needed to go ‘BIG’ for our plan to work. So, we designed not one, not two, but three separate activations to capture attention at SXSW and change perceptions.
The first was a dual activation held at the Creative Services Expo. We brought RICOH’s love for information to life with INFOMANIA, a fun trivia game, (virtually) hosted by none other than Jeopardy's own Ken Jennings. Contestants got to compete for prizes and interact with Ben Jennings, a live, energetic host [and superfan of Ken Jennings]. In addition to INFOMANIA, we created DIGITALMANIA, an activation inspired by Austin’s many unique murals. Attendees could team up with AI artists to quickly design a digital mural of their own. Each mural was displayed on a large LED with faux brick wall where attendees could pose in front of their creations for photos to be shared instantly across social channels.
Next, we produced RICOH’s TMI Summit at the Stadium Club at the University of Texas Football Stadium. The Summit aimed to show valued customers and partners exactly how RICOH turns TMI into ROI. The Summit consisted of a round of INFOMANIA trivia game designed specifically for the Summit audience featuring a tailored digital appearance from current Jeopardy host Ken Jennings. There was a keynote from Amy Loomis, IDC Future of Work Research VP, a valued partner panel that included Microsoft and AWS representatives, and several breakout sessions for attendees to network and hold valuable discussions. Finally, since the Summit was in UT’s football stadium, all attendees assembled for pictures on Longhorn Field.
Last, but not least, we produced an exciting hospitality event at The LINE Hotel’s P6 Lounge. The P6 Lounge offers an outdoor dining experience overlooking parts of Austin and the Colorado River. Ricoh’s customers and partners enjoyed great food and drink along with a special performance by country music’s up-and-coming star Graham Barham. To cap off the evening we designed a drone show to light up the night sky over SXSW. The display ran for 9 minutes and consisted of over 400 drones programmed to reveal RICOH’s TMI branding. Putting RIOCH and TMI among the stars for a few moments made certain RICOH increased the visibility and appreciation of ‘TMI’ and all that it represents at SXSW.
SXSW attendee's and customers' responses were overwhelmingly positive to RICOHMANIA. The DIGITALMANIA activation alone created thousands of social media impressions. Attendees and customers alike expressed that learning more about RICOH’s impressive offerings and capabilities had completely changed their impression of the company. One potential customer said, “I didn’t realize RICOH operates on the same level as other hi-tech companies, including system design and partnerships with Microsoft and AWS.”
