Prospecting With Puppets Pulls for Scientific Firm
Paging Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. There’s a marketing campaign you’ve just got to see.
The good Doctor—who, along with his assistant Beaker, was the scientific mind behind many a failed experiment on “The Muppet Show”—would find much to like in PuppetChemistry.com, an ongoing lead generation campaign by Agilent Technologies.
Agilent manufactures measurement tools for chemical analysis, life sciences, electronics and communications industries. The Puppet Chemistry site, which launched last year, uses a video of Muppet-like puppets to illustrate how a laboratory’s productivity can be increased by using products from the recently introduced 1200 Infinity Series of components
The goal of the video was to get prospects to click through to Agilent’s site for more information. Viewers can forward the video to friends, with their friends’ names and company names superimposed on the screen, thus adding a viral component to the campaign. The approach is admittedly unusual for B-to-B.
“Not to say there isn’t a lot of creativity in healthcare/scientific B-to-B, but it usually isn’t so unselfconscious,” says Tom Simons, president/creative director of Boston-based Partners + Simons, which worked with Agilent on the campaign.
The video’s target audience is scientists and chemists who work in research and forensics labs. While they might not be the folks who ultimately sign the checks, they do have a lot of influence.
“They have to sell the purchase because they drive the scientific platform,” says Simons. “There’s loads of evidence that scientists who are involved in drug discovery are using the Internet to research instruments and platforms.”
Simons adds that, “This was really an effort to bring a personality on a global level to a new line of instrumentation. The video platform is unique and communicates in a lively, disarming way and engages them in the marketing message.”
Trends in Science & Healthcare Marketing
Many of Partners + Simons clients are in the scientific/healthcare market, which Agilent caters to with efforts like Puppet Chemistry. Simons shared his thoughts on some of the challenges and trends facing B-to-B marketers targeting this audience.
• Healthcare Reform: “Healthcare reform obviously presents a challenge—there isn’t a playbook written for it yet,” Simons says. “It presents a different challenge to different segments."
In the case of health plans, the presence of mandates for businesses to offer health insurance and for individuals to have health insurance has changed the product mix and emphasis. “The cost curve in healthcare isn’t going to be bent or slowed down unless patients become more discerning as healthcare consumers,” Simons notes. “That means a lot of marketing directed at consumers.”
• Digital Delivery: “The efforts to control costs are creating all kinds of questions, dilemmas and uncertainties in the sector,” Simons notes. “Whether companies are speaking to scientists or physicians, there’s a trend emerging to attempt to educate these stakeholders on the implications of healthcare reform.”
There’s a definite interest in having health plans position themselves as partners to navigate these uncertainties. “And, obviously, digital delivery will be the primary medium to do this. It could take all kind of forms—microsites, iPhone apps, you name it,” he says.
