Around the World in 90 Days

or insert sidebar quote tets test Around the World in 90 Days How new collaboration tools helped ExxonMobil save time developing and rolling out a new worldwide advertising campaign

By Scott Barton

ExxonMobil Lubricants & On November 1, 2003, nine people left pleted by May 2005, but the expedition didn’t Specialties is a major Sunnyvale, California, heading south in four end until February. This meant that Emory had worldwide supplier of Land Rover vehicles. They returned some 15 to get six months of content production work lubricant basestocks, months later, after an around-the-world jour- done in 90 days—work that could not be finished lubricants, ney that included deportation from China, a completed ahead of time because it required petroleum specialty visit with the Dalai Lama, and beating the 60 footage of the vehicles upon their return. products, and lubrication percent odds of hitting a kangaroo on the back services. It markets roads of Australia. “If the content production wasn’t finished in products under the three months, we would miss testing our Drive ExxonMobil, Exxon, Esso, Although the group’s adventures may sound Around the World campaign before the cold- and Mobil brands. like an extreme college road trip, the journey weather season ended in eastern Europe, was a fundraising event run by the Drive forcing us push back the campaign’s formal Around the World foundation, in which a team rollout and delay the delivery of a compelling of volunteers drove across four continents to message to consumers,” recalls Emory. raise funds to help find a cure for Parkinson’s disease. More than 60 companies sponsored Located in Fairfax, Virginia, Emory acts as the 41,000-mile expedition, providing funds a liaison between corporate strategists, an and equipment to defray expenses and help account team at the McCann Erickson ad ensure that all money raised went to the agency in New York, and ExxonMobil and charitable organization. In exchange, the McCann offices around the globe. She briefs sponsors could use the expedition in their the ad agency on new campaigns, works with public relations and marketing campaigns. them to determine strategy, oversees the production of campaign materials, and At ExxonMobil, which provided the lubricants coordinates the review and distribution of used in the expedition’s vehicles, the respon- those materials with stakeholders worldwide. sibility for spearheading such a campaign fell to Debra Emory, global advertising manager For the Drive Around the World campaign, for the ExxonMobil Lubricants & Petroleum Emory had to produce three 30-second TV Specialties Company (Lubricants & Special- commercials, a three-minute trade video, six ties). The Land Rovers held up well through print ads, five billboard ads, fourteen point-of- extreme weather and road conditions, which sale pieces, and three promotional pieces— made it easy for Emory to come up with a deliverables that would be adapted for use in campaign that communicated the performance close to a dozen countries. The effort involved benefits of Mobil 1 motor oil in a scenario with people in several dozen offices around the which consumers could relate better than world: Emory and others at ExxonMobil laboratory tests. Lubricants & Specialties headquarters in Virginia; McCann Erickson account teams in There was one small catch, however: Pro- New York, Brussels, and Singapore; and local duction of campaign materials had to be com- This is second page header (with 4 para marks ahead of it)

ExxonMobil and McCann offices in countries the portal helped Emory meet her deadline where the campaign would run. and deliver all campaign materials on time.

A year ago, such a project would have taken at “Without the portal, we wouldn’t have finished least six months due to the delays associated in time,” she says. “It would have taken at least with sharing creative output with people three more months.” around the globe. “It took a week for CDs or “We never could have videotapes duplicated in New York to reach With the portal, which runs on pulled off such a global offices in other countries, with the process Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal campaign in such a short repeated several times as materials were Server software, video footage edited time without the created and refined,” says Emory. “Offices in in New York on Monday was collaboration tools local markets faced similar delays in sharing uploaded that same evening. It was script translations and translated TV com- reviewed in Europe while Emory slept, provided by McCann.” mercials with headquarters for review and and could be discussed on a —Debra Emory, approval.” conference call the next morning. If Global Advertising Manager, footage needed to be reshot, the team ExxonMobil Lubricants & Reporting on historical and projected media could be back in the studio the next Specialties spending also was slow and time-consuming. day. Even simple requests could take days to fulfill as someone requested monthly budget sum- “During TV production, we used the portal to maries from the various geographies, post TV scripts for client review and approval, extracted the desired information, and director’s reels for selection of video cuts, and compiled it into a consolidated report for rough cuts for review by local markets,” recalls delivery to the client. Emory. “When midproduction changes were required, such as the decision to incorporate a Ramp-up for the ExxonMobil campaign map graphic into a commercial, the resulting began in August 2004, when the expedition delay was little more than a day of production team was passing through China. By the time time.” ExxonMobil and McCann had defined a creative strategy and production was ready to As local offices adapt content, they post begin, it was late January and the expedition those adaptations back to the portal, which team was crossing from Alaska into Canada users can configure to notify them by e-mail as on the last leg of its journey. files are changed or new ones uploaded. “Now we can review translated scripts and localized Fortunately for Emory, McCann Erickson TV footage virtually immediately, again parent company McCann Worldgroup had just eliminating weeks of delay as each office launched its new ExxonMobil Collaborative adapts the content for local use,” says Emory. Portal, a Web-based workspace that enables ExxonMobil and McCann personnel to better Finished materials are moved to an online work together and share information. By ena- library for archive, so they can be easily found bling content to be shared virtually instantly, and reused for future marketing campaigns. Interim versions of commercials used for This is second page header (with 4 para marks ahead of it)

quantitative testing also are stored on the McCann generates for clients, but also the portal, enabling users to view those commer- business systems that support such delivery. cials and examine the test results at any time. “Our world is one of ideas and Beyond using the portal to facilitate the crea- brands, so the sharing of creative “I still work with people tion of marketing materials, Emory and others ideas is critical,” says Smith. “At the around the world, but now at ExxonMobil Lubricants & Specialties head- same time, we’re a professional- it’s as if all our offices were quarters also use it to track global media services firm with a number of in one location.” spending, which helps them monitor the different disciplines, each with its own — Debra Emory, momentum of marketing campaigns after unique processes and workflow- the creative phase is finished. support systems. To serve global Global Advertising Manager, clients like ExxonMobil, we need to ExxonMobil Lubricants & “Media planners worldwide enter schedule and pull together all of that creative Specialties budget information directly into the portal, with information and business data across the data rolled up into monthly reports that I organizational and cultural boundaries, and can use to easily monitor media activity around present it in the context of the task at hand. the globe,” says Emory. “Reports are inter- That’s the challenge we live with.” active, so I can view the data based on time period, product, brand, geography, or any of So far, McCann has deployed close to 60 several other criteria.” client-facing collaborative portals, with additional ones used for demonstrations to Altogether, 140 ExxonMobil employees and potential clients. Other portals serve internal 180 McCann Worldgroup employees continue groups—for example, virtual teams that are to collaborate with each other using the portal, working to win a new account. According to which also includes a best-practices area Smith, such capabilities help McCann quickly maintained by the McCann Erickson Global marshal resources and win new business. One Account Team that highlights how local such example is the Intel global advertising geographies have combined the various and media business, which McCann landed in communications materials provided by March 2005 after an exhaustive six-month Emory into successful, integrated marketing process that involved rounds of concurrent campaigns. pitches in North America, South America, Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan. The collaboration needs of global organi- zations like ExxonMobil—and the delivery of “People are our greatest asset, and we need solutions that can meet those needs—are a to provide them with the tools and information priority for Greg Smith, Chief Information that they need to work more efficiently, Officer of McCann Worldgroup, which operates collaborate more effectively, compete more across 120 countries. A driving force behind strongly, and make faster, better decisions,” the company’s strategy to put information at says Smith. “We have a wealth of internal data the fingertips of those who need it, he and tools, and portals are a way to extend envisions customer portals as a single point of those assets to employees and clients. Once access to not only the ideas and content that This is second page header (with 4 para marks ahead of it)

we have their attention, there’s no end to the information that someone else needs,” says information we can deliver.” Smith. “Competitive pressures are driving everyone to cut costs and streamline time-to- So far, Smith’s vision for a connected, market. It’s the people in an organization that collaborative enterprise is tracking to plan. make those things happen, and we need to do McCann is continuing to deliver new types of everything that we can to help them.” information through the portals. For example, McCann provided access to an internal work- For clients like Emory, whose Drive Around the flow system so that one of its clients could sign World campaign is now running in selected off on projects directly. For another, McCann markets and testing well with consumers, the delivered a reporting tool that allows the client benefits provided by the portal are huge. to dynamically analyze the advertising spend- During the expedition, bureaucratic delays, ing of competitors. weather, and shipping schedules extended a nine-month planned journey into a fifteen- “Things are just getting interesting,” says month reality. But thanks to McCann’s use of Smith. “The technology is available, which technology to help people share information, means we can shift our focus to the business Emory was able to make up that lost time and issues. We’re at a point where we can deliver deliver the necessary campaign materials in any business application to any office in sup- time to make the most of ExxonMobil’s spon- port of any client. In all the work that we’ve sorship of the event. done to date, we haven’t met a business need that we can’t meet.” “We never could have pulled off such a global campaign in such a short time without the Smith also is looking at how technology can be collaboration tools provided by McCann,” says used to streamline other tasks, such as con- Emory. “The portal has personally made me a ducting business with broadcasters and other lot more efficient. I’m able to get many more media companies from which McCann buys things done in real time, our overall throughput advertising time and space on behalf of clients. is greater, and we’re getting more done with lean resources. I still work with people around “People at agencies and other vendors often the world, but now it’s as if all our offices were spend too much time in front of the printer or in one location.” fax machine, assimilating and sending the

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