Case Study: IBM The Model Factory

IBM Industries needed to introduce Industry 4.0—a connected, AI-driven vision of manufacturing built on Watson and IBM's cloud—to the decision-makers running the world's largest industrial companies. The problem was translation. Industry 4.0 was real. It was also abstract, dense, and hard to feel.

The answer was a factory. A working, interactive one.

Outcomes:
2019 Effie Award Bronze Medalist
Drove over 200+ validated leads with potential win revenue of $4.1B

Based on an insight that our target audience (CIOs and CTOs) enjoyed games and puzzles, we built The Model Factory as a browser-based experience that let manufacturing executives walk through a connected plant floor and see, in context, where IBM's AI, IoT, and analytics were doing the work.

Supply chain optimization. Predictive maintenance. Quality inspection. Each capability was grounded in a real operational problem and a concrete answer. We didn’t focus the story on "here's what our technology can do," and instead emphasized a narrative around "here's what your factory becomes."

During this period of AI adoption the ideas of predictive analytics and machine learning were relatively new. We designed this campaign, along with a full content strategy, to get leaders comfortable with bringing IBM and Watson into their supply chains and factory environments.

The campaign won an Effie Award and generated the highest lead volume of any B2B campaign within the IBM Industries group that year.

It also exceeded revenue goals by 75% and led an addition case study in the “Model Factory World” (shown at the top) depicting a German automaker who implemented Industry 4.0 into their operation.

Role: Director, Global Content. Led strategy, narrative, and creative direction in partnership with agency and in-house teams.