To transform the commercial client reviews programme for Dell, AxiCom created a one day, pan-EMEA press event for technical press and reviewers to showcase Dell commercial products and solutions (workstation/client/datacenter) and inspire the reviews programme for the following 12 months.

The Challenge

Running the commercial products review programme had proved challenging in terms of matching the expectations and demands of product reviewers with our ability to provide the volume and diversity of kit required. AxiCom also felt that Dell lacked regular, personal contact with a number of the product reviewers and wanted the opportunity to strengthen relationships with them as well as to better inspire them about its design and innovation focus.

The Strategy

To bring a large number of technical journalists to a single location where they could experience complex demos or actually sit down, review individual products during the day and spend the day with Dell product experts.

Working with Dell, we looked for a venue that offered plenty of blank, industrial space that we could adapt to our own look and feel.  It also needed to have something extra to offer visitors so that they had an additional reason to attend. Dell Technology Camp eventually took place at Mercedes Benz World, near Woking in Surrey. Aside from featuring hundreds of contemporary Mercedes cars, it also houses many classic and iconic models, a museum and a focus on Mercedes’ history in motorsport, including Formula One and the Le Mans 24 hours.

Attendees from the UK, Germany and Benelux had the opportunity to experience four separate zones following an initial brief keynote session where Dell outlined its design and innovation credentials:

• Enterprise zone– detailed and complex datacenter solutions including virtualization, storage, systems management were mixed with the opportunities to tear down recently launched blade, server and storage kit.  Working with Microsoft and Intel, we also focused on bringing the demos to life with relevant and topical software and hardware technologies

• Client zone– opportunity to review individual desktop and laptop products and peripherals in unique, cool and individual workspaces created by classic Mercedes models

• Workstation zone– hosted demos of tower and mobile workstation products for key CAD and high end design titles

• Whisper zone– NDA zone showing future products

In order to ensure that attendees got the most they possibly could out of the event, we also created white rooms where they could photograph products and/or record podcasts.

As an additional enticement to guarantee high attendee levels, we gave attendees the opportunity to participate in a number of driving experiences in high performance Mercedes cars around the Brooklands Circuit. 

The Result

• 33 press attended the event – primarily from the UK, but also from Germany and Benelux
• More than 50 reviews either happened or were seeded at the event
• Following the event
  • 43 seeded directly at event - 4 Storage, 12 Server, 27 Client
    • 7 further requests are still in progress
    • Others have been created as a result of relationships built at the event
    • Award-winning coverage resulting from event included IT Pro, PC Pro, RegHardware, TrustedReviews, WhatLaptop? and ZDNet
• Over the past 12 months – 70% of the reviews of Dell’s commercial products were either seeded at or directly influenced by Dell Technology Camp

Quotes

•  “A truly excellent event and concept” – Simon Crisp, freelancer
• “All of the products were very accessible and the open nature of the event really worked” – WhatLaptop?
• “An excellent event, a great idea and something really fresh for us” – Jon Honeyball, PC Pro
• “The event has inspired us to pitch a new series of demo videos to challenge ZDNet” -  Steve Cassidy, IT Expert