SAP expands targets to SMEs in global blitz

Speaking to Media in Singapore, SAP global chief marketing officer Marty Homlish pointed out that the new campaign reflects the evolution of the company's marketing model to target small and medium sized businesses, given SAP's existing strong standing among Fortune 100 players. The latest phase of the 'Best run business' campaign -- developed by Ogilvy & Mather New York -- is built around the concept that companies which run SAP are 32 per cent more profitable than those that don't, and also features the brand tagline 'The best run businesses run SAP.' "It's all about the proof points of what it means to be a best run business," explained Homlish. "The next step is we would like to extract the value and begin to communicate it back to our customer base, the magic formula of being a best run business." In Asia-Pacific, the print campaign is running in Japan and Australia, in addition to a global run that includes the US, UK and France. Homlish noted that the "real story behind the print ad" comes from the SAP website, although he sounded a note of caution about increased online spend. "One of the things we are looking at this year is dramatically expanding our online presence," said Homlish. "But online advertising measurements are not as accurate as they are for traditional media. The universe has to be equalised -- we have a lot of different levels where we are driving to capture contact information." SAP is aiming to generate of minimum of 100,000 customers over the next three years, a figure that currently stands at approximately 34,500. To do this, notes Homlish, SAP's lead generation system is being refined to create a hybrid machine that combines telemarketing, DM and online. "The traditional marketing model for most software companies has been one-to-one," said Homlish. "But with the SMEs, where there are millions of prospects -- it is totally inefficient to believe we can extract those customers with traditional one-to-one models." As part of this programme, continued Homlish, SAP is "aggressively working on live demos, chat and video success stories" to attract and retain eyeballs online.