B2B Genius – The IBM Challenge

• March 1, 2011
Steph

Nearly 10 million Americans tuned in on Valentine’s Day, all the way until the following Wednesday, to witness the IBM Challenge. Although this feeds our fears of computers taking over the world, Miami Web Design has to admit – it was pretty cool. Watson, the IBM computer dominated the game, going against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. These two contestants have been the greatest players the game had ever seen, until Watson came into the picture.

The concept of Watson started in 1997 when Deep Blue played Garry Kasparov in chess evolved into what it is today. A computer that not only stores hundreds of thousands of tetra bites of information, but that also understands the way we speak, and that knows how to interact, in its own way.

Now don’t think that IBM obtained all this free publicity, no by no means what that the case. IBM actually played to be associated with the Jeopardy name, and even created the studios in Yorktown, NY so that Watson could be in a climate-controlled environment. So what did IBM get from such a campaign? Well for starters, it was a business to business campaign. IBM has no consumer clientele, the purpose of the challenge was to sell IBM computers to the Fortune 1000. IBM strayed away from the usual B2B channel and used something much more mainstream, something that would attract more attention, and that would work more effectively. Just think of the genius behind it all, 10 million Americans were tuned, beating the usual B2B gateways: news programs and golf tournaments.

Here’s what IBM did right: they scheduled the 3-episode airing during the football drought, and because there was a month between the actual filming and the airing of the show. This allowed the Watson marketers to put the wheels in motion about the whole event. Watson was publicized through a website that gave background knowledge and information about the machine, through a book written by Stephen Baker, a PBS program Nova that was a documentary about the computer, through Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube videos leading up the airing. The 30 short Youtube videos racked up more than 1 million views, and featured the brains behind the project, not the business suits.

Another innovative move IBM performed was that it chose to feature the little guys, the scientists and engineers, instead of the corporate heads. The representative of the challenge was the charismatic chief scientist Dr. David Ferrucci. The fact that Dr. Ferrucci and his team were able to explain technology concepts in plain English proved to be an asset throughout the whole campaign. Because IBM featured the brains behind the project a down-to-earth tone was given to the whole challenge, making it more attractive and popular with typical Americans.

IBM also showed the applications of Watson on the show, as well as through its various media outlets. Through web casts, technology sites, and even Twitter.

Although IBM did front a lot of money in the beginning, this investment will prove to have been one of the smartest things the company has done. It will not only reap the rewards, but so will the dividends. Over the past week, IBM has been swamped with inquiries by corporations, universities and government agencies wanting to get their own taste of Watson.

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