ABOUT

This case study sets out to demonstrate how an intelligently planned integrated communications strategy developed with understanding of the clients market can increase audience engagement by 900% in just 6 months.

Pretty impressive for a campaign that was only required to remind clients of the brand’s off-the-shelf services.

The Brief
Following their success at the 2011 CIM Marketing Excellence Awards, the Almac team invited us to create a new multi- channel campaign for 2012 that would explore their range of core services.
Almac Clinical Services delivers three core services ranging from intelligent packaging and labelling to a global distribution network with depots in more than
40 countries.
Historically, Almac Clinical Services had always opted to create campaigns that covered all of the brand’s competencies in a single idea. However – for 2012 that strategy was set to change.
Our brief for 2012 was to create a series of three ideas that would individually explore the benefits of each core service across a range of media platforms.
The Solution
Having clearly identified the brand’s three core services, our challenge was to introduce what to all intense and purposes are standard services to an audience more used to hearing about Almac’s pioneering breakthroughs.
Our solution was to articulate a single undeniable benefit to the customer from each core service and present that benefit in the most interesting manner possible.
Starting with the brand’s global distribution service, we identified that the primary benefit to customers in that service was
not that Almac has depots in more than 40 countries, but rather that Almac has a depot in ‘their’ country.
This realisation was translated into a campaign that visualised the proposition
of the brand’s global offering by bringing many of the different countries together in a single landmass that sought not to amplify the distance between nations, but how as
a company, Almac actually reduces the distance by being everywhere.
Using the island of Manhattan as our base, we brought together icons from Australasia,
Europe and South America to create a global village that is both intriguing to the eye and draws visitors in so that the reader/visitor to the site is brought on a journey of discovery and they find landmarks they will know and associate with being local.
The Result
Launched globally in January 2012, we were able to effectively track the performance
of each press ad through the application of individual QR Codes linking to specific areas of the brand’s website. This allowed us to dial up or dial down media investment in each specific publication in direct relation to return on investment. This strategy was effectively supported by a digital campaign that reinforced the core brand offerings.
From the outset of the campaign, the intriguing visual component of its creation engaged with the primary target audience.
Indeed it was so engaging that it provided a talking point at various exhibitions worldwide with visitors discussing the number of landmarks they identified within the initial press campaign.
Intriguingly, all but one of the landmarks was found – which led to a competitive attitude from customers as they sough to find the final landmark. As a brand engagement tool this effectively led to our target audience spending longer with the brand and taking away from that engagement that wherever you are in the world, there is an Almac Clinical Trials facility close to you.

In November 2012, Almac Clinical Trials were awarded the CIM Excellence In Marketing Award for the second year consecutively.