Watson, Wild Ducks, and the next 100 years.
During IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign, there were two watershed moments for IBM, and I was fortunate to work on both of them.
The first was the development of the Watson natural language supercomputer to compete against the human champions of the quiz show Jeopardy! Not since IBM built a supercomputer to take on reigning chess champion Gary Kasparov had there been a grand challenge that captured the world’s attention like this one.
The second was the company’s 100th anniversary, which gave us the opportunity to work with Oscar-winning directors Errol Morris and Davis Guggenheim to bring some fascinating stories to life.
In the 14 days around the Jeopardy! match, Watson was in more than 10,000 media stories, generating over one billion impressions, and site traffic to ibm.com increased by 556%.
IBM turns 100.
When IBM turned 100, they wanted more than the conventional self-congratulations. They defined objectives against employees, clients and investors, and we built a year-long program of executions and events to turn the occasion into business advantage.
Realizing much of their success was due to their clients, IBM wanted a way to say thanks. But more than that, they wanted to inspire them. Former IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, Jr. often told a story at company gatherings about a flock of wild ducks. He used it to inspire his employees to think radically and never grow complacent. Wild Ducks is a film about four visionary IBM clients whose unconventional ideas have created meaningful change in the world.
One of the biggest events of IBM’s centennial year was THINK: A Forum on the Future of Leadership, a leadership summit held in New York City. 750 leaders from 55 countries, 300 businesses, 13 non-profits and 12 universities convened to discuss leadership in a rapidly changing world.
What made these videos interesting beyond their content is that they were shot, edited and posted on Twitter in near real-time. A short distance from the Forum location (Lincoln Center), we rented out a basement and turned it into a makeshift stage. Forum presenters were shuttled back and forth for 20-minute conversations with Errol. We edited the footage, got approvals and posted the videos on Twitter and various other IBM channels within hours. By the time the Forum concluded, we’d created and published 30 separate pieces of video content.
After the event was over, key moments in the Forum were assembled together into a summation of what was discussed and who said what.
This is the Smarter Planet op-ad that ran after the Forum was over, summarizing its key points and conclusions. For easier reading, click here.
Every logo tells a story, but some stories are a little more complex than others. To tell 100 years of IBM, we didn’t just need a good logo – we needed 100 of them. Dubbed Icons of Progress, each of the 100 logos was inspired by a different IBM innovation. To bring Icons of Progress to IBM’s social channels and lobby video loops, we animated them.
Using every earned and owned media channel available with minimal paid expenditure, the campaign showed how the history of IBM was a history of the future. Without selling directly, the work succeeded in generating significant financial returns, ensuring the second century of IBM began on the best possible note.