case studies

Sharp Branding

Sharp Branding Light-download

Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas is the U.S.-based microelectronics sales and marketing unit of Japan’s Sharp Corporation, charged with marketing the company’s LCD panels, memory devices, microcontrollers, optoelectronics and other components throughout North and South America.

challenge
  • Improve upon the 7% awareness of Sharp as a broad-based microcomponents supplier among purchase decision-makers and influencers at OEMs.
  • Fill a big sales pipeline (Sharp sales force, distributors, independent sales) with leads.
  • Win preferred vendor status among key OEM targets.
solution
  • We brought products together under an integrated communications program aimed at establishing Sharp as the industry visionary.
  • Positioned ads to appeal to engineers’ design fantasies by featuring visionary products. A corresponding direct mail program provoked interest and response.
  • Media relations, press tours, interviews and white papers established Sharp personnel among editors as go-to experts.
  • New generations of online tactics built hits, site functionality, and helped Sharp demonstrate its impressive array of products, packaging and support services.
result
  • Benchmarked awareness among decision-makers rose from 7 to 28% within five years.
  • Sharp successfully penetrated 90 of its top 100 OEM targets.
  • Ads consistently scored #1 and #2 in readership, including several all-time high scores for ad readership in the publication.
  • Three years of direct mail generated 70,000 individual leads.
  • Some 8,800 leads traced to public relations.
  • Sharp experienced a 70% compound annual growth rate over five years.