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SAP — The world’s largest software company that nobody knew existed.
“Run Better” Brand Reposition and Identity
Or: How To Stop Worrying About The CRON And Love In-Memory Computing
What SAP Needed
In 2012, SAP had built HANA; an in-memory database that processed transactions 10,000x faster than disk-based systems. Revolutionary technology. Except nobody outside SAP’s engineering team understood why sub-second query response times mattered to their P&L.
Oracle owned “business intelligence.” IBM owned “enterprise computing.” SAP was the ERP company you inherited when you bought the German division. They needed to own something new: the idea that your infrastructure could be a competitive weapon, not just plumbing.
The brief was impossible: make in-memory database architecture compelling to CFOs who think RAM and ROM are characters in a Dickens novel.
Run Better (Year One)
We didn’t talk about HANA. We showed what became possible when your database processed 50 million records in 2 seconds instead of 2 hours.
A retailer predicting inventory needs across 5,000 stores in real-time, not overnight batch processing. A manufacturer detecting quality defects on the production line, not three weeks later in warranty claims. A bank approving mortgages in minutes while competitors took days.
Built the campaign around a simple truth: when you eliminate the wait between question and answer, you make better decisions. Not faster decisions. Better decisions. By the best companies, the best brands, that you want to be a part of, and that are a part of your life.
“Run Better” wasn’t about SAP. It was about becoming the consumer facing brand in pole position. The company that sees around corners while competitors are still looking at yesterday’s reports.
Created the full stack: CES keynote films for CEO Bill McDermott, anthem content establishing the platform, product demo videos translating HANA’s technical capabilities into business outcomes, sales enablement decks proving ROI, partner toolkits for the SI ecosystem.
Everything laddered to one idea: SAP customers don’t run on better technology. They run better than competition.
And we showcased the customers who did.
“Run Like Never Before”
Run Like Never Before
(Year Two/Three)
After 18 months, “Run Better” had repositioned SAP as infrastructure for competitive advantage. Now we had permission to get ambitious.
“Run Like Never Before” pushed the narrative: HANA didn’t just accelerate what businesses already did. It enabled entirely new business models. Real-time pricing optimization that was mathematically impossible with batch processing. Predictive maintenance preventing equipment failures before they happened. Customer experiences that adapted in milliseconds based on behavior patterns competitors couldn’t even detect.
We featured companies doing things that weren’t physically possible 24 months earlier. A utility company balancing power grid loads across an entire region in real-time. A shipping company rerouting 10,000 daily deliveries on the fly based on traffic, weather, and customer availability. A financial services firm running risk scenarios that used to require overnight supercomputer time—now happening during the phone call with the client.
The line between IT capability and business strategy collapsed. That was the story.
What Happened
SAP’s market cap increased 60% during the campaign run (yes, HANA was real technology, but technology doesn’t sell itself). More importantly: perception shifted. SAP stopped being the legacy ERP you tolerated and became the platform innovative companies ran on.
Sales teams reported the content directly closed enterprise deals—CIOs forwarding videos to boards, CEOs referencing the campaign in analyst calls. The partner ecosystem adopted the narrative, amplifying it through their own channels. McDermott used campaign language in earnings calls.
Most telling: Oracle and IBM started talking about in-memory computing within 18 months. We’d changed what enterprise software companies competed on.
The Principle
B2B tech buyers don’t want marketing. They want proof their peers are winning because of you.
Show developers and engineers that your platform makes them heroes inside their organizations, and they’ll drag their companies to you.
The best enterprise campaigns don’t sell product features. They sell what your customers become.
Role: Creative Director / Director / Editor
(Dependent Upon Year)