For many years, the North American market share of the architectural software industry has been dominated by Autodesk, the largest software brand.
GRAPHISOFT, a dominant player in Europe but a true challenger brand in the US, was looking for new and unexpected ways to disrupt this very competitive software market. Together with the GRAPHISOFT North American leadership team, Sagon-Phior acknowledged the challenge and embarked on a remarkable journey to find the perfect idea that could steal market share away from the giant.
Our process began with a single key insight: True innovation companies don’t shine the spotlight on themselves.
This mandate provided our joint client/agency team with the focus to pursue an unexpected marketing initiative — one that could provide a more meaningful expression of how GRAPHISOFT technology can uniquely inspire success, and help architecture firms and the entire Architect-Engineer-Contractor chain to build their business with greater confidence and profitability.
The result was a decision to forego traditional advertising in favor of placing all bets on a make-or-break branded content play. From this strategy emerged By Design, the first emotionally-driven branded content series in the architecture category.
The series connects the brand to the audience’s emotional triggers by exploring the underlying themes that inspire architects — challenging assumptions, breaking rules and fostering disruptive ideas.
While Goliath was busy focusing on features and benefits, GRAPHISOFT provided architects and engineers with serious thought-provoking content, ideas and insights from the very people that drive the industry. The ROI on the series has been exceptional. Beyond that, within the last 8 weeks, GRAPHISOFT and Sagon-Phior have already won three major international awards for marketing effectiveness:
2018 Communicator Awards:
GOLD for Marketing Effectiveness
Summit International Awards:
GOLD for Branded Content
Architectural Record Magazine:
Advertising Excellence/Highest Social Media Engagement
What makes these awards so gratifying is the teamwork between our agency and GRAPHISOFT’s North American and global management, marketing and sales teams. Thank you Tracey Gatland, Viktor Varkonyi, Akos Pfemeter, Monte Chapin, Marianne Sims, Daniel Ferenc, Mary Moscarello and the entire GRAPHISOFT sales teams. Your insights and ideas helped to transform this approach into a blockbuster launch, and one that has Goliath looking over his shoulder.
Thank you to our Creative Director and Producer Len Dickter for traveling 9,000 miles, interviewing over 50 architects across two countries, shooting over 8 terabytes of film, directing over 1,600 hours of editing and producing over 120 individual films and 4 featured episodes. Go ahead and take the afternoon off.
With our second season set to launch this week, now is the perfect time to take a look at this wonderful, enlightening and award-wining digital series. New episodes and bonus content will launch throughout the Summer and early Autumn, and our series website includes all of our first season content as well, so it’s easy to catch up on everything you’ve missed.
