Granite

In an increasingly competitive AI space, IBM wanted to elevate their perception and be seen as an undisputable leader within the industry. They briefed us to create a B2B influencer-led strategy for promoting Granite, their purpose-built Large Language Model (LLM), amongst developers and C-Suite decision-makers.

Understanding this space, we advised that we should partner with trusted KOLs; all either Developers or Tech/AI experts. Our proprietary technology, Ibex, identified seven creators whose audiences matched our target demographic but with a variety of styles of content. For the creative, our Insights team uncovered that there is still confusion around how AI could actually be used in the real world, so our Strategy team suggested a two-part storytelling technique for the content; Preview followed by Reveal.

We focused on short-form video across a range of platforms. LinkedIn is obviously a massive B2B social network, but TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts are also increasingly destinations for technology and business content. By integrating all four, we ensured to reach their audience wherever they choose to consume content. We also used paid media to increase reach and target towards audiences interested in this type of content.

We always ensure never to script our creators and influencers, but provide clear messages to land within the content. That way the creators can maintain their own tone of voice and style. The “Preview” followed by “Reveal” storytelling technique was particularly successful with the second round of content actually driving more engagement than the first. People were hooked in and wanted to see the results, and the creators had a clear narrative to work with.

Finally, in addition to driving traffic to IBM.com, some content drove to third-party sites such as Hugging Face, reflecting an audience first approach that allowed developers to explore Granite on the platforms they prefer.