Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in Internet content security, focuses on securing the exchange of digital information for businesses and consumers. A trans-national company, with headquarters in Tokyo, Trend Micro’s trusted security solutions are sold through its business partners worldwide.
Trend Micro contracted Pinstripe Marketing to help launch the company’s new Worry-Free Security Suite to attendees at the CMP XChange trade show event in Los Angeles.
‘Whack-a-Virus’ Builds Excitement for Trend Micro Software Release
In a simpler age — much simpler (think hunter-gatherer society) — humans dealt with threats in one of two ways. They either ran away, or they whacked it with a stick or rock. And there is still something innately gratifying about that latter approach to even the most modern problem. Acknowledging this instinctual inclination in everyone, the Pinstripe Marketing team created a microsite and the Whack-a-Virus video game to promote Trend Micro’s Worry-Free Business Security software.
Debuted at the CMP XChange trade show for IT solution providers, Whack-a-Virus was based on the whack-a-mole arcade game in which a player tries to guess out of which hole a facsimile rodent will pop up its head, and smack it with a mallet. In the Pinstripe version, the action took place on a video screen and the furry vermin was replaced by several different nasty cartoon viruses sporting names of viruses and worms, Ghost, Klog and Mr. Klunky, among others.
Tradeshow visitors played the game in the Trend Micro demo room, where they were able seek vengeance taken against the attacking viruses on big screen monitors. But if dispatching the likes of Spike, Fizzle or Wild Thing wasn’t thrilling enough, top scores were also rewarded such exciting prizes as iPods, Bose headphones and GPS systems. But regardless of how any individual player scored, everyone who played got a pin featuring one of the seven villain viruses. Collecting the pieces of flair itself became something of a competition (with spirited trading going on to acquire some of the more difficult to attain badges). The result was hundreds of people walking around the event with the Trend Micro pins attached as trophies to the attendee’s name tags.
While the Whack-a-Virus game created a buzz for Trend Micro at the CMP XChange tradeshow, other elements of the Worry-Free Business Security promotion were employed. Visitors were showered with magnet calendars, brochures, the book Smarter, Faster, Better by Karlin Sloan and a “smart button” computer plug-in that automatically sent users to an online demo and training for Worry-Free Security. Additionally, interested visitors to the Trend Micro area could also take home not-for-resale copies of the application, ensuring that promotion for Worry-Free Security would carry beyond confines of the show.
The Trend Micro channel marketing team also called on Pinstripe to create fun and whimsical campaigns and promotions for trainings and floor days at their distributors and national reseller partners.
Well before the 2016 election, The Apprentice was the #1 show on television. We worked with their team to launch Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security 7 to the technology channel and their field sales team. We developed the “Trend Apprentice” campaign that included training support materials, posters, a microsite and this parody video in which an IT professional is challenged to select the best security software but falls asleep and finds himself in a world where he must fire the inferior competitors. The video premiered at the Trend Micro sales summit in Las Vegas to great reviews. We love clients that can have a little fun!
