Humanizing Technology
Technology marketing sometimes gets a bum rap. For starters, it is a subset of business to business marketing which is already treated like the dreaded dull cousin who shows up at a barbecue and drones on and on about arcane topics—all while wearing a suit and tie.
But tech marketing can be fun if you remember one important thing about your audience: they’re human.
Say what you want about Apple’s relevance to business, they certainly know how to make technology fun. And human.
The iPhone guided tour on the Apple site is 20 minutes long and has probably had more views since it debuted than the entire history of the viral video phenom Numa Numa. That may be overstated. But not by much.
What’s the attraction? Apple is incredibly good at simplifying complex technology and communicating it in a way that is both accessible and exciting. It helps when you have some of the most innovative tech thinking at the core (pun intended). But we can all learn from Apple.
This year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival had its share of winners who demonstrated that humanized technology marketing is the best kind. Consider this wonderful direct mail package for IBM.
What better way to demonstrate that IBM caters to more than just large companies, than by sending a specially designed letter split into three parts, analogous to Small, Medium and Large businesses. All three parts could be read as one continuous letter. And each part could also be read as a standalone letter showing that every business regardless of size is important to IBM. Brilliant and approachable. In other words, human.
Another wonderfully inventive piece of DM for Olympus Microscopes in Australia was also recognized at Cannes. Olympus had the challenge of losing market share to other cheaper equivalents in their space. What did they do? They sent out the world’s smallest questionnaire to their most valued customers. The survey was so small it could only be viewed on their microscope. Website traffic spiked 24% during the promotion and many of their best customers were retained.
Cannes has many other wonderful examples of inventive and human approaches to technology marketing. Check it out.
And next time you see that dreaded dull cousin at a barbecue, clip his tie and throw him a Hawaiian shirt. There really is no excuse for dull technology marketing.
