TORONTO - Nortel [TSX: NT | OTC: NRTLQ] brought home the gold - the gold award, that is - from this year’s Effie Awards for its Energy Efficiency integrated marketing campaign that is helping businesses go green and save money on energy costs. The campaign, focused on making energy efficiency work for today’s business leaders, edged out some of the world’s most prominent marketers and companies to win the coveted marketing award.
The Effie Awards , the most prestigious awards in the marketing communications industry, were founded in 1968 by the American Marketing Association to recognize the most effective marketing and advertising efforts based on business results. Nortel won the ‘David vs. Goliath’ category, in which Nortel, as the underdog, competed head to head with Cisco by positioning Nortel network solutions as being up to 40% more energy efficient.
“The Effie Awards recognize marketing campaigns that take a big idea and make it really resonate with their audience. It’s clear that our collective team moved the needle on the public’s perception of energy efficiency for businesses,” said Joel Hackney, president, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel.
“To win an Effie compliments the whole of Nortel as it reflects the cumulative efforts of R&D, sales, operations and more by enabling marketing to effectively articulate a unique customer proposition,” said Wes Durow, vice president, Global Marketing and Channel Strategy, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel. “When great products come together with smart, integrated marketing the results can be powerful. We are honored to be recognized by Effie for our work.”
In an effort to help businesses reduce energy bills and go green, Nortel launched the campaign to educate owners on energy efficiency. Nortel promoted the question “How much is your network costing you?” to push customers to an online Energy Efficiency Calculator tool that provides customized facts, determines potential cost savings for businesses, and lets customers look at options side-by-side in order to see true comparisons.
The campaign was designed to allow people to investigate for themselves how much potential money and energy could be saved through Nortel’s solutions. Nortel presented the information to companies, and let the facts speak for themselves. A critical contributor to the program was the advertising campaign developed with McCann Worldgroup, one of the world’s largest marketing communications companies.
The campaign has generated significant business results, resulting in a 42 percent increase in customer leads specific to the energy-efficient data products, an increased sales funnel and has proven to be a critical factor in numerous recent wins.