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CASE STUDY
Can a small regional agency scale to meet the needs of a global enterprise? Ask Avnet, at its largest a $26.5 billion organization and #106 on the Fortune 500 list.
For almost 20 years, the global electronics distribution leader looked to Sierra to support the internal and external communications needs across nearly a dozen business units or corporate functions/initiatives around the world.
Sierra successfully executed a wide variety of results-driven campaigns and projects for the distribution leader, supporting the company’s strategic objectives, driving brand preference, generating demand and engaging employees. Here are a few of the many examples of the work we’ve done over the years:
Annual State of IT Security Report
How do you develop brand preference when you don’t make the products you sell? Focus on two key differentiators for distributors: ease of doing business and data security.
Working in conjunction with Avnet’s CIO, CISO and cybersecurity team for four years, Sierra produced an in-depth 16-24 page annual report that broke down the latest trends in cybersecurity and shared Avnet’s perspective and steps the company planned to take to stay one step ahead of malicious hackers and thieves.
Copies of the report were distributed globally to employees, manufacturers, channel partners, customers, prospects and other stakeholders to put fears at ease and help differentiate Avnet from their competition.
CYBERSECURITY BEST PRACTICES INFOGRAPHICS
Malicious hackers and identity thieves know the greatest vulnerability in a company’s cybersecurity strategy is the employee with access. Avnet sought to turn this weakness into a strength by calling on Sierra to develop a monthly series of easy-to-understand infographics, covering a variety of cybersecurity best practices.
These infographics avoid the use of any colloquial language or visuals that might not resonate globally to avoid confusion before being translated into nine different languages for local distribution.
REACHING THE ANALOG EMPLOYEE
Communicating with white collar employees is easy, but what about employees who rarely – if ever – look at a screen during the workday?
At one point, nearly one-third of Avnet employees worked in one of the company’s many warehouses and technology centers, with limited access to kiosks and workstations set up primarily for HR purposes.
In response, Sierra relied on a variety of signage options to effectively convey key messages and initiatives to warehouse and tech center workers, including posters, stand up banners, illuminated theater bogos, backlit dioramas, table tents in break rooms and more.
LIVE ACTION VIDEO AND ANIMATIONS
Avnet CIO Steve Phillips was a strong believer in the value of video in the B2B context, and he chose Sierra to develop and produce a series of more than 40 videos – about six to eight per year, roughly three to five minutes each – designed to explain the latest technology trends and share how Avnet is harnessing their potential across the enterprise.
The series featured a variety of formats, including two-camera interviews, on location shoots, and blending live action and motion graphics to explain esoteric topics
The series was very successful, generating hundreds of thousands of views and occupying seven of the top ten viewed videos of all time on Avnet’s YouTube channel.
The Top Trends of 2016 video alone garnered more than 19,000 views – an incredible success for a business video from an electronics distributor with little to no brand awareness among consumers.
