Things can get ugly 10,000 feet below the sea
Communicating the benefits of invisible high-tech products. How do you work to promote safety and efficiency 3,000 meters below the ocean? The secret was to dramatize how deep R&D materials expertise can support oil and gas customers in achieving their offshore goals.
Our client. Ranked as a Top-100 innovator by Forbes, Sandvik is a global high-tech engineering group with 46,000 employees covering 130 markets. The group focuses on advanced alloys as well as tools for metal cutting, mining and construction. Our assignment was from their Sandvik Materials Technology business area, with a focus on the upstream offshore oil and gas industry.
Our assignment. Although Sandvik has served the offshore oil and gas industry for 60 years, few customers understood the full breadth and depth of their materials and engineering know-how. This is largely due how the industry is organized into specialized silos. The challenge was to address safety concerns, move up the value chain and talk to key decision makers at the oil and gas companies – the engineers and corrosion specialists who specify key components.
What we did. We positioned Sandvik as a trusted materials partner, helping its customers to go further and deeper offshore in hot, sour and corrosive environments – with unparalleled safety and reliability. To do this, we identified icon products that embodied some amazing stories. Like duplex steels which can withstand extreme pressure and corrosion. Or their delivery of 300 million feet of umbilical tubing, enough to stretch around the world 3.5 times – with zero failures! These became proof points in a long-term communications program under the theme: “We help you get there.”
The toolbox of online and interactive tools we developed for the sales team (films, web, interactive tablets, apps, 3D subsea journey) has proven to be hugely useful at tradeshows in demonstrating the benefits of their solutions. The communication program, which ran in key trade magazines, was singled out by the leading trade organization as being “best communications of the year,” with a high recognition rate.
