Challenge

Maersk, one of the oldest a shipping companies in the world, is in a transformational journey to become a modern logistics company that can transport goods from start to finish, and not just across the sea.

Through various acquisitions over the last few years, the business now can offer fully integrated logistics helping address individual client needs. This is a revolutionary play in the world of logistics, an industry characterised by extreme fragmentation and immense complexity.

In its most basic form it means that when you partner with Maersk, they can help you get anything from A to B utilising Maersk’s huge network of different transportation modes, digital services and expert insights. By providing a one stop shop that seamlessly connects a company’s supply chain, clients can unlock new business opportunities and incremental value.

Brand:
Entered by:

Our marketing challenge was to draw more attention to this transformation and change the perception of Maersk from a shipping company to an integrated logistics provider. We needed to break with our iconic legacy as a container carrier and get people to think of the brand as the business partner that can move your products in every way, and all the way.

To be successful we’d have to go beyond the traditional logistics executives audience and speak to the wider C-suite. This was crucial as logistic & supply chain investment decisions involve a wider pool of decision makers outside of the logistics and procurement departments.

A crucial challenge for was to disassociate the brand from the negative category perception. In recent years logistics has been more about chaos control and trying to avoid being the bearer of bad news, but we wanted to show that partnering with Maersk will enable you to use integrated logistics to discover new and exciting adventures for your business.

Content Solution

Lara Croft & Indiana Jones meets Logistics!

A world that is connected like never before also has more contact points that can affect the logistical journey. This forces our audience to navigate unforeseen events and dead ends on a daily basis.

We confirmed this through usertribe tests and campaign validation studies within the target audiences demonstrating strong relatability to the daily struggles in logistics.

We wanted our audience to know that Maersk can help them change dead-ends to business opportunities, and in doing so also change the perception of Maersk.

Detailed on-going brand trackers have shown major positive perception shifts correlated with brand campaigns that used emotional storytelling to create distinctive universes compared to conventional category comms.

Continuing this proven people-first approach, we use an adventure story to stand out and build mental availability in the often dry B2B environment while also presenting ourselves as relatable and relevant to our target audiences: logistics professionals and C-suite executives.

The idea was to show that the challenges you meet when working in logistics can feel like those Lara Croft or Indiana Jones might encounter. Unexpected problems happening while getting something valuable from A to B. However, if you’re not Indiana or Lara it’s nice to have a partner like Maersk who can help you overcome the different challenges – whether it’s a blocked canal, customs clearance or flying spears.

Our hero asset, a 135-second video, follows a logistics professional, Diana, on an adventurous journey that with the help of Maersk discovers new paths. This idea echoes our brand message that when you use Maersk’s integrated logistics you go from a chaos controller to feel like the hero that turns dead ends into new paths for the company. Ultimately this helped strengthen the overall message that Maersk is not just ocean shipping but can help you all the way.

Media/Content Amplification Solution

The campaign was crafted to look like a blockbuster adventure film with the epic feel, action and humour the genre is known for, to stand out in the Social Media feeds, towards the C-suite and the logistics professionals. With all the competition behaving in a conformist way adhering to category conventions we created a campaign that looked more like a movie trailer than a b2b campaign

Our strategy employed a two pronged approach. A top layer building fame across the Approvers (C-suite) supported by a more targeted category layer to reach the logistics and supply chain executives (Buyers). We created a launch moment by front weighting part of the campaign. We bought long form (100″) TV spots on CNN international and BBC World in high affinity C-suites environments opting for the most relevant business moments. Additionally we utilised global print publishers like FT and the Economists who have strong penetration with the C-suite utilising large format insertions to achieve high affinity reach. VOD was used to tighten up the targeting, using contextual filters in related business topics. To extend the campaign reach, we leveraged lean back moments taking the campaign to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

We also took one step further and for the first time bought Airport placements in key business hubs like London Heathrow, JFK and Shanghai airports. To increase impact we double our SOV within these placements running lengthier edits and secured day-parts matching business traveller patterns. High stand out sites were prioritised achieving strong cut through complemented by DAP network to increase OTS (opportunity to see).

We knew that buyers (Logistics execs) would require more depth of information to boost their confidence over our claims. We used a mix of traditional channels, such as trade press, along with paid social and digital display. On LinkedIn we were able to segment audiences even further, based on seniority, company and position. This allowed us to upweight frequency to priority accounts providing the air cover for our sales teams.

In Maersk HQs, spears as seen in the video were fixed on walls to create excitement and start conversations. Additionally, adventure film-like prints and social posts supported campaign messaging and made Maersk stand out in the category.

Corporate Influencer | Winner🏅
"This campaign used every touchpoint to create a truly global impact. The jury loved the Involvement of the employees – creating internal ambassadors. Maersk tackled negativity about logistics head-on and succeeded in injecting emotion into B2B marketing. Plus, there were great results – two thirds of people who saw it went onto connect with Maersk."
– Judges comments.
0 %
Uplift in awareness of Maersk following the campaign.
0 %
Video view through rate was 60% over campaign benchmark.
0 %
Increase in favourability of Maersk post-campaign.

Results

The campaign has been a staggering success outperforming initially set KPI. Our non traditional approach has paid off creating huge engagement and driving talkability, both crucial to our overarching goal of shifting brand perception.

Media KPI: Awareness & Engagement

  • Awareness KPI: We hit our planned KPI of awareness achieving a 2% increase in brand awareness with a particularly strong performance in Europe, a core region for this campaign, where we recorded an 8% uplift smashing the original target by 4x!
  • Engagement KPI: View through rate (VTR) was outstandingly high at 40%, +60% over our KPI.
  • Click through Rate (CTR) has far exceeded benchmarks, too, at 0.87%, +200% over planned KPI.
  • Most audiences that reach the website through the film are engaging in content (67.3%), and 7.5% of those who stay to get in-depth knowledge about Integrated Logistics

Marketing KPI: Perception & favorability Shift

We dominated the conversation acquiring significant gains in the category. More specifically our SOV in integrated Logistics increased by +46% MoM in media. This measures talkability and brand mentions across social media, trade and business publishers proving that our campaign not only was noticed but was widely talked about!

More importantly our campaign achieved an increase of 4% in favorability as measured by a brand uplift study, an increase of 100% over the initial target of 2%.

More Information

Maersk
Havas