Creative Direction takes over CBR magazine

The front cover of Computer Business Review was taken over in a marketing first by Berkshire-based design and marketing consultancy Creative Direction Consultants.

Creative Direction developed a special edition front cover of Computer Business Review for 50 FTSE 350 CIOs and IT Directors who picked up their usual copy of CBR and saw themselves in a watercolour portrait on the front cover in this hugely impactful piece of marketing for Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

CBR is known for its unusual front covers, which depict a watercolour of a personality who features in the issue.

Creative Direction obtained pictures of their key contacts and mocked up a dummy front cover for each, which was then belly bound with a personalised message.

"Our aim was to cut through the PA or gatekeeper barrier to grab the attention of our target CIOs," said Patricia Harriss, Planner at Creative Direction.

"Our goal was to get the PA excited enough to hand deliver the personalised edition to the boss.

"Getting the right impact was only possible by trying something completely new, in context of a title that they know and trust".

The purpose of the activity was to promote Fujitsu Siemens Computers' Dynamic Data Centre Challenge campaign, which challenged FTSE 350 companies to reduce their data centre operational, server footprint and power consumption costs by 40 per cent or more.

The belly bind took the readers to a double-page advertorial spread, which outlined what the Dynamic Data Centre had to offer and gave more details of the Challenge.

The campaign was also successful in tapping into the ongoing corporate debate on the issue of balancing cost with green and responsible computing.

James Collister, Marketing Manager at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, was impressed by the quick results: "The dummy front covers triggered in-bound calls from CIOs and IT Directors to us, as opposed to us having to follow up with telemarketing - a refreshing turnabout".

"This is the first time we have undertaken this kind of activity with our magazine but we felt such a highly personalised piece of activity was absolutely right for our audience of busy senior business leaders," commented Jamie Finlinson, Head of Sales at CBR.

Creative Direction supported the activity by business press advertising (in The Economist and Business Week), direct marketing and a Challenge portal, which features the Server Saver Game to allow users to calculate their savings online.

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