RED HAT

THE ENTERPRISERS PROJECT

Capabilities
Brand Strategy, Content Programs

The Back Story

There are CIOs who view their role as supporting the business at hand. And then there are the visionaries. Those CIOs who recognize disruptive technologies and practices are critical to driving business results — and are passionate about discovering how to realize them. These are exactly the kind of CIOs Red Hat wanted to talk to, but an audience not yet ready to view Red Hat as an enterprise-worthy brand. CIOs in general are difficult for marketers to influence. And this subset of visionaries — less than 40% of the total (discovered through statistical segmentation studies) — are the hardest. Enterprisers, as we call them, place little value on marketing, preferring to learn from like-minded technology and business leaders, and respected industry sources. Lacking the budget to compete with an industry that spends $250,000,000 on B2B advertising, and recognizing their target would be skeptical anyway, we knew Red Hat needed an unconventional way to capture minds.

The Change Agent

And so, we developed The Enterprisers Project — a content platform connecting change-driven CIOs to the who, why and how of IT-enabled business innovation. The idea was to build a community around these visionaries and engage them in useful discussions that simultaneously built Red Hat’s reputation.

Let’s talk results

If you like what we did for RED HAT it’s time to talk about what we can do for you.

We began with Brand Strategy to uncover gaps in the industry and find a role that would be meaningful to the audience and unique to Red Hat. We then brought it to life through a content marketing strategy. For credibility, we partnered with CIO Magazine and Harvard Business Review to provide editorial focus and create a platform for discussion. For distribution, we used CIO segmentation data, and targeted Enterprisers with programmatic media. The heart of the program was a content and conversation platform where Enterpriser CIOs could share and discuss transformative IT business topics and ideas they care deeply about. PJA had responsibility to find, recruit and work with CIOs to create the content that brought the project to life. Each year, the project publishes hundreds of articles and videos, and conducts two large-scale research initiatives. We also hold Roundtable events at CIO Summit and other trade shows where our audience meets and we can uncover new content for the site. Today, the Enterprisers Project has an editorial board of 55 leading CIOs who create over 100 articles per month. It’s a popular destination for CIOs – and has also been approved as a Google News source, emphasizing the credibility of the site.

“

One of my charters at Red Hat is to make a case to CIOs that we deserve serious consideration as an enterprise infrastructure provider. PJA’s response was The Enterprisers Project, which has been a breakthrough program for us.
Jackie YeaneyRED HAT

The Brand Impact

By facilitating an important Enterprise-level conversation with CIO magazine, Harvard Business Review and Enterprisers, themselves, Red Hat gains credibility in an area they aren’t known for. And with intelligent use of social media, we broadened the conversation much faster and further than a traditional marketing campaign ever could. Today, the Enterprisers Project has an editorial board of 55 leading CIOs who create over 100 articles per month. It’s a popular destination for CIOs – and has also been approved as a Google News source, emphasizing the credibility of the site.