Horn Group Recognized by LACP for Its Kalido 'Data-Driven CFO' Campaign

The League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) last month recognized Horn Group with a Gold Magellan Award for the Kalido 'Data-Driven CFO' campaign. The Kalido communications team was awarded best business-to-business campaign and a top 50 campaign of the year. The Kalido communications team includes Horn Group in the United States, Brands2Life in the United Kingdom, and internal Kalido communications. LACP recognizes exemplary communications professionals.

Kalido provides data warehousing software to the world's largest companies such as BP, Shell and Unilever. Its software helps these organizations aggregate and make sense of information from multiple IT systems to achieve a clearer view of how their business is performing around the globe. Kalido's software is typically bought by an organization's IT Director or Chief Information Officer. But by the end of 2004, Kalido's sales teams reported that they were seeing more Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) in sales meetings. The CFO was becoming a key direct purchaser.

As a result, Kalido needed to influence this new audience through specific sales and marketing strategies if it was to continue to engage with its customer base. A major pain of CFOs is obtaining clear views of business performance across multiple geographies, divisions and departments for reporting and analysis as their enterprise undergoes transformation such as M&As and reorganizations. With this in mind, Kalido's marketing and communications team designed and implemented the award-winning 'Data-Driven CFO' campaign.

Campaign Strategy

  •   Integrated media, marketing and sales campaign with cross-division working party
  •   Extensive re-messaging - all activities to talk to CFOs "in their language"
  •   Develop and own the concept of the "data-driven CFO"
  •   Establish Kalido as a thought leader and an information resource for CFOs
  •   Arm sales team with coverage, collateral and other tools showcasing Kalido's ability to address issues pertinent to CFOs


    • Campaign Tactics
  •   Messaging project to adapt the Kalido story for the CFO
  •   Laser sharp campaign materials including CFO direct mail pieces and updated website content
  •   Media briefing and market education
  •   Issues commentary and rapid response
  •   Thought leadership and blogging
  •   A 'Data-Driven CFO panel discussion
  •   Kalido user group survey
  •   Credibility with customer case studies


    • From the outset, the campaign was integrated and involved a close collaboration between sales, marketing and public relations teams both within Kalido and across its contracted agencies. The campaign spanned Kalido's two principal markets - the United Kingdom and the United States - and was implemented within a strict budget to allow additional marketing activity that continued to focus on Kalido's more established audiences in the IT community. With strong support from the Kalido executive team, the communications group set out to create a strategy that would be heard above the market noise, providing tangible sales leads and a dramatic increase in awareness for Kalido.