Inspire the Future

A letter from Abe, a 7-year old boy to his best friend Eli, hoping they could play together soon. A response letter from Eli back to Abe that included a drawing, telling Abe about his new “rocit” Lego set of “837-pecis” and that he missed him. While e-mail boxes and social media channels were being flooded with negative, fear-based messaging, we found inspiration in two little boy’s simplistic view of what was going on in the world.

People need to feel inspired. They needed to feel hopeful. Our customers needed to know that SAP was here when they needed us. Most were concerned with keeping their businesses afloat. They were not in a position to be sold to or marketed to and they certainly didn’t need to be bombarded with negative messaging as the world was experiencing unprecedented challenges related to a pandemic.
Project Abe (externally known as Inspire the Future), a go-to-market partnership between Industries and lines of business, field marketing and industry business units was developed to engage with prospective buyers in an innovative way through creative storytelling and visuals to draw the attention of the buyer. This unique approach to address business pains told through the eyes of a child, capturing the mind-share of our target audience maps sellable SAP solutions to a positive business outcome.
The business pains were identified by industry marketing directors in partnership with the IBUs associated with them. Six industries are included in the pilot program (Consumer Products, Oil & Gas, Higher Ed, Public Sector, Health Sciences & Telco). Industries were selected based on pipeline and revenue opportunity, competitive market data related to projected industry recovery timelines, regional market support and IBU support.
The top-of-funnel campaign, humanizes the SAP brand and appeals to the emotional effect on purchasing behavior and brand preference. Each tactic within the campaign was designed to be future-facing, relatable, hopeful and ties SAP's mission of improving people's lives.