Early in the year, HubSpot set out on an ambitious mission to reenergize the customer relationship management (CRM) space and become the go-to CRM partner for growing businesses. But their target, the enterprise CRM buyer, thought of HubSpot as a small business “starter” tool, rather than an enterprise software company. Their challenge was to convince people that HubSpot was the most powerful, capable, and easy to use CRM tool on the market by driving consideration of new users and shifting perception of the brand. In order to change that perception and claim the CRM crown they needed to go head to head with the de facto king in the CRM space, Salesforce, and prove they could grow any business.

UNLIKELY FOUNDER SUCCESS STORIES

We developed a flexible and extendable creative concept called HubSpot Success Stories. It’s a concept that allows us to highlight different use cases from some unexpected, fictional founders. And who better to play our first fictional founder, a Pirate CEO, than the charming and hilarious Kathryn Hahn. In our first campaign, Hahn shows us how she uses HubSpot to scale her pirate business across all seven seas in a more human way, making growing her business a joy for all.

While most respondents named Salesforce as their CRM recommendation, global research revealed an underlying frustration shared by almost all users: once signed on, they found Salesforce’s software was too complex for their teams to use and they weren’t getting the support they needed. Many were forced to hire third-party consultants to implement their Salesforce CRM software, stalling usage and slowing growth.

CRM category choice felt limited and not differentiated– same blue logos, same dull language, same solutions. Our target was craving something different– a more human approach to CRM that balanced product sophistication with ease of use.

Our approach? In a sea of complicated and blue CRMs, HubSpot is a vibrant, joyful orange beacon. HubSpot CRM is crafted with human needs at the core. The campaign positions HubSpot as an easy to use and powerful CRM that drives growth at any business, no matter how unorthodox the business may seem.

We created two suites of assets – one featuring Kathryn shot on HubSpot’s iconic orange and the other on our pirate film set. We used the suite of orange portraits in paid placements across OOH, print and social while the pirate ship images were primarily used in organic social. Our bright, bold compositions added humor and imagination to a category that’s usually filled with pastel blue, corporate business imagery. And by showing up in contextual but unexpected placements – like our Fast Company cover wrap and NYC Ferry Wrap, we were able to reach upmarket decision makers in new and impactful ways.

Quickly after HubSpot’s first-ever global brand campaign set sail –

HubSpot overtook Salesforce, for the first time, as the number one peer-recommended CRM platform for Enterprise Usability.

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