Fuji Xerox Launches New B2B Product With a Fashion Show
“I think the industry … Fuji Xerox is [in is] a very competitive one,” Steven Caunce, Corporate Affairs Manager, Fuji Xerox, said.
Aside from the competitive B2B space, “selling print devices to large organizations, it’s not a particularly sexy business to be in, so we’re always looking for different ways to try to engage and motivate our customers.”
A prime opportunity to engage customers in this manner is when launching a new product, he said. It’s especially important since the industry is so competitive.
To generate excitement for the Versant 2100 printer, the team at Fuji Xerox created a fashion show featuring a fictional designer, complete with direct mail “lookbooks.”
The creative event campaign Steven and his team came up with generated new sales, inspired the brand’s sales team and accounted for 34% of the Asia-Pacific sales total.
“Trying to have a bit of fun, a bit of entertainment, is always a key part of our product launches,” Steven said.
Steven said the team has done many launch events before, but this was the first time they had ventured into the world of fashion. The campaign was around a piece of direct mail, which featured a lookbook from a faux-designer named Versant, after the product name.
“Then, we had to bring it to life with a fashion show. One of our clients is a leading fashion designer, so we had a sit down with them, explained what we were trying to do,” he said.
The team began working with a local fashion school, putting together twelve looks for the show with the mandate that all the dresses had to be made out of paper printed on the machine itself.
“There were no limitations to what the students could actually create, but everything was paper-based,” he said.
The fashion show was put together in a compressed time period with the genesis of the idea beginning around May, and the fashion show happening in September.
“Like any fashion show we had our fair share of dramas … we had a lot going on backstage, but the end result was just breathtaking,” Steven said.
As a result of this innovative direct mail and event-focused B2B campaign, the New Zealand branch of Fuji Xerox accounted for 240% of the sales target at the three-month mark.
At the five-month mark, the New Zealand team’s sales accounted for 328% of sales target. Additionally, the New Zealand branch accounted for 34% of the Asia-Pacific total for the Fuji Xerox three-month launch phase, even though the New Zealand brand makes up less than 1% of the region.
You can follow Courtney Eckerle, Managing Editor, MarketingSherpa, on Twitter at @CourtneyEckerle.
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Categories: Marketing B2B marketing, Consumer Marketing, event marketing, fashion show, Fuji Xerox, marketing event, MarketingSherpa Summit 2016, new product release
