IT advertising is fundamentally pretty boring. Usually it features a picture of a black box (it may even be white or silver).

There’s little differentiation between brands, and stock photos of clean paperless offices are standard fare.

In these messages there is a perfect IT world that runs without problems. Ask any IT Administrator and you’ll know that such a world doesn’t exist.

Dell couldn’t respond with comparative advertising - illegal in Germany. So we had to find a way to differentiate the brand.

The few attempts to distribute branded content aimed at this audience had been a failure and often simply used dubbed films from the UK or US.

Comedy formats like Big Bang Theory are a big success in Germany but for real IT geeks, they are very superficial.

Our solution was to create successful comedy that was designed to appeal to the real IT guys.

It was in German, by Germans and for Germans but only those who worked in IT, filled with inside jokes and IT language that only German IT administrators would understand.

Our solution was to deliver proof that Dell cared about the German business IT market.

We created a 16-webisode sitcom, telling the day-to-day stories that only our target could truly understand.

We promoted the sitcom via Germany’s biggest IT websites as well as via tightly targeted Facebook video ads and blogger outreach.

All messages drove our target to Dell’s new Tumblr page where a bespoke DAU generator let IT Administrators turn their own stories into sharable memes.

We offered merchandise such as mugs and buzzers featuring the worst DAU stories in return for contact details – generating meaningful leads.

Integrated with Facebook and Twitter, we also linked our Tumblr site to Dell’s business website.

In just four months, we grew a community of more than 213,000 IT people, with 20% of them returning regularly.

The sitcom was a massive success with more than 1.5m video views, half of them earned. Content from rival brands such as HP have earned just a few hundred views.

The first episode was the most successful Facebook post in the whole IT category ever. In one week we generated more than 120,000 organic views, 3,000 shares and more than 1,000 comments.

More than 650 DAU-experiences and over 220 memes have been created, while earned media was valued at 32% of the total budget. In fact, we exceeded regular buzz about Dell B2B by 1,288%, and 76% comments are positive compared to an industry benchmark of just 10%.

Our merchandise became a must-have for IT Administrators, generating more than 15,000 qualified business leads, saving the client more than 50% on the normal cost per lead and beating our target by 25%.

We put Dell back into the IT conversation and made it a real contender the next time our audience considers a new hardware purchase.