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You're a full-fledged geek and you're proud of it. You live and breathe code. Programming is your life, much of which is spent in a cube searching the galaxy (okay, the web) for truth, knowledge and a patch to the software you're fixing. You don't get out much, but when IBM offers a chance to meet Miquel de Icaza (if you were a geek, you'd know he was the founder of the GNOME project), you tape up your glasses and head on out. |
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| Help change perceptions of IBM among software geeks by generating interest in developerWorks, a portion of IBM.com dedicated to developers. |
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Software developers concentrated in six key markets. They love George Lucas, hate JarJar Binks, love gadgets, hate over-promises, love being geeks, hate superficial attempts to communicate with them, and so on. |
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We started the buzz by handing out computer keys with a barcode at the launch party for developerWorks. Attendees were told it was a puzzle, we said "hey, figure it out." Some did on the spot, and others did later, by going to the developerWorks site, seeing the barcode, typing in the number and thereby gaining access to an online/offline community where developers could meet, rant and rave about all things geek.
Subsequent barCode events catered to the minds and passions of geeks across the country. In Seattle, we created a Geek Olympics where developers had a chance to compete on their terms, which included shooting down a life-size JarJar Binks. In Boston, a chance to play with Lego Mindstorms (hand made robots) and meet one of the gurus of code, Miguel de Icaza. In San Francisco, remote control racecars coupled with another sage of software, Charles Goldfarb (founder of XML if you must know) got geeks out in droves. More importantly, they got a chance to see "new Blue" in action and how developerWorks.com could really be a useful resource. |
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| barCode helped IBM exceed goals for registered users on the developerWorks website. More importantly, it also helped change perceptions about IBM, making "new Blue" a company they not only wanted to work with but also would consider working at - the ultimate sign of geeks changing their perception of the brand. And barCode was instrumental in BRANDWEEK's recognition of IBM as Guerrilla Marketer of the Year. |
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