The Krypton Factor

Sage is a business software specialist operating predominantly in the B2B sector - not a category renowned for its innovative or challenging media behaviour. Sage wanted to create an extraordinary customer experience and a reputation for innovation.

Another challenge for Sage was its disparate customer base – everyone from bricklayers to finance directors used Sage, but for most of these the brand was not front of mind. How could Sage influence all of these people?

The unifying feature of Sage’s customers seemed to be their entrepreneurial spirit. Sage can help customers invest in the skills of their people and themselves. The idea of a challenge and applying your own skills led to the notion of celebrating the skills required to be successful in business. Sage and its agencies PHD and Drub teamed up to create the biggest ever ad-funded television show in the UK. It resurrected a primetime classic called The Krypton Factor. The show had run on ITV from 1978-1995 and tested the mental and physical strengths of contestants through puzzles, memory games and an infamous assault course. There would be no traditional advertising in the media plan, just a TV show and associated creative properties online. ITV produced the programme, with creative input from Drum, and Sage received a “brought to you by” credit four times on each show. The skills required in the new format show (Intelligence, Physical, Knowledge, Observation and Mental Agility) perfectly matched those needed for business success.

In addition to the TV deal, Drum acquired full licensing rights which allowed them to create www.trainyourbusinessbrain.com (TYBB) where people could play mental dexterity games to advance their Business IQ.
TYBB was further leveraged with a partnership with business networking site LinkedIn, which would let users compete against each other. This was the first ever partnership of its kind for LinkedIn - an integration which would create the site’s largest single user group. Participants could go through business challenges and then compare their performance to their peers.

The Krypton Factor debuted to an audience of 6.3m viewers and more than one-in-three people in the UK watched the series (20m). The average visit to tranyourbusinessbrain.com was 11 minutes and 72% of customers felt more positive about Sage because of the show. Sage achieved double-digit growth in key brand measures “cutting-edge”, “exciting” and “energetic”. When viewers were asked which business software they would now consider purchasing, Sage came second only to Microsoft. Sage is so pleased it has committed to a second series of the show.