KPMG didn't just need bigger in-boxes, it needed a system that could differentiate urgent from not-so-urgent messages, and could collate and store email pertaining to different projects, including relevant charts, photos, budgets, and other attachments. And it needed workflow capabilities so that if there were different versions of a document being emailed back and forth, everyone could discern which version was the most current.
The system also functions as a useful gatekeeper. "KPMG wanted a way for managers to be notified of something only when they needed to be notified," says Robert Schoettle, vice president of marketing at Intraspect. The new system eliminates emails that "don't contain value," says Schoettle, while email that is deemed relevant includes "threads" connecting it to related messages, "so readers can discern the back-and-forth evolution of the issue or item being discussed."
Most important, Courtney says, is that the system virtually eliminates the need for on-site status-and-delivery meetings. "We used to fly five or six dozen of our employees who were working on a project to some central location to discuss it with the client," he notes. "Then we'd fly them home on weekends. In the meantime we'd rent office space for everyone to gather. This is not exactly inexpensive."
Now those same employees gather and collaborate on the Web in the virtual workspace created for that project. They participate in discussions with project leaders, post and receive documents, add their thoughts to status reports, and so on. "The productivity improvements are enormous," asserts Courtney.
How does he know this, other than using just plain common sense? "We're measuring ROI two ways—how long it takes us to develop proposals for clients and how long it takes us to produce different deliverables," he explains. "Each involves multiple people across multiple geographies. Since we know how long it took us to do these the old way, we can gauge the impact on productivity."
There are soft benefits as well. "A new employee who is relatively inexperienced can ramp up rapidly by entering the virtual workspace and examining everything there is to know about an ongoing project," says Courtney. "And we're decreasing frustration levels by helping employees easily find what or whom they're looking for. We've basically reinvented the way we collaborate." —RB
Saab Cars U.S.A.
When Saab Cars U.S.A. (www.saabusa.com) was trying to determine which Internet users were ripe for the plucking, it found that the key was fermented grapes. Hoping to entice affluent shoppers into showrooms, Saab did some demographic research and found that its target market had a strong affinity for travel. "They're also pretty adventurous, the kind of people who love to do outrageous things," says Colin Price, interactive marketing manager at Norcross, Georgia—based Saab Cars U.S.A.
So Saab crafted an ad campaign that used the lure of a free vacation to California's wine country, from Monterey to Napa Valley. A convertible Saab would serve as the primary means of transport, with a hot-air-balloon ride and some sea kayaking thrown in. "Basically, we made the sweepstakes virtually impossible for people in our target market to pass up," says Price.
But how best to communicate the contest to that market of well- educated, highly paid 25- to 54-year-olds? Saab's technology partner, Boston-based Digitas (www.digitas.com), did its own research and discovered that two Web sites catered to this demographic — Epicurious.com, a wine site, and Concierge.com, an upscale travel site. "We designed a banner ad that blended in with the look and feel of these sites, so viewers would click through thinking it was actually part of the site," says Digitas chairman and CEO David Kenny.
Viewers who took the bait saw a flash movie in which a convertible Saab 9-5 cruises up the Pacific Coast Highway across a bridge and into Big Sur. The clip ends with a shot of a hot-air balloon ascending the deep blue sky. And then the hook: To participate, entrants would have to test-drive a Saab at their local dealership.
That is where the rubber meets the road for Saab, because the company has found that its best chance of competing with the likes of better-known Euro-sedan kings such as BMW and Mercedes is to get people behind the wheel of one of its models. The tag line "People who test- drive a Saab usually buy a Saab" isn't just wishful thinking, but is borne out by market research (although Saab won't quantify "usually").
Therefore, any calculation of ROI for the Web advertising effort had to be designed around its success as a vehicle for getting people into showrooms and out on the road. Based on that metric, the effort was a stunning success. "The number of people who took test-drives based on the contest exceeded projected estimates by 300 percent," says Ken Adams, CFO at Saab Cars U.S.A.
"Previously, we had established a benchmark in terms of the number of sales we wanted to generate through the ad campaign, then estimated the number of test-drive sign-ups consistent with that," adds Adams. "Basically, we had an objective and worked backward from that."
The winner of the contest, announced late last year, was a woman from Cincinnati. "The best part was that after the trip, she came home and bought a Saab," says Price.
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