Driving SUNGARD's Global Event Campaign

SunGard, one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies, needed a highly functional multi-media website to drive support activities and online marketing for its 2010 global events programme. 3chillies implemented a Sitecore Content Management System (CMS), providing the flexibility for continual updates, and the capacity for rich content, registration facilities and data capture.

Website is the hub for global events programme

SunGard serves 25,000 customers in 70 countries, providing software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. Its global campaign for 2010 revolved around the acronym TEN - Transparency, Efficiency, Networks – and comprised 15 City Day events, beginning with Frankfurt in April and ending with São Paulo in December.

The City Days were primarily driven by online marketing, centered on the TEN website www.capitalize-on-change.com which acts as a hub for the events programme and campaign content.

Sitecore platform is ideal for creative and technical collaboration

Within the main TEN website is the event site, built by 3chillies using Sitecore. SunGard already uses this platform as its default corporate CMS, so staff are familiar with it and find it very easy to use.

SunGard partnered with a creative agency to provide site designs and PSD files for the visual content. 3chillies was very involved at this stage, contributing to the creative process and advising on technical limitations. A number of issues were identified, clearly demonstrating the value of a collaborative approach.

The creative agency delivered files for 3chillies to build the website on the Sitecore platform, which it accurately aligned with the statement of work and design template.

Event website drives the whole campaign

The event site is key to delegate sign-up, since the only way to pre-book for the City Days is online. Registrations have performed well and have proven to be a very successful data capture exercise. Perception index findings show that visitors spend a lot of time on their specific city location page, a positive reflection of site content, navigation and functionality.

SunGard also runs an email campaign for each City Day during a 12 week window - ten weeks before and two weeks after the event – which helps to drive traffic. The website provides a lot of tailored content, for example thought leadership videos prior to the event, and afterwards presentation downloads from the breakout sessions and vox pops of delegates discussing topics.

Campaign success points to future development

Site content and functionality have been well received by delegates and by SunGard senior management. One of the pieces of functionality particularly appreciated by participants is being able to build and print off their own agenda.

The project ran to an aggressive deadline but 3chillies put milestones in place to get the job done. SunGard always had direct contact with developers, and appreciated 3chillies’ transparency. In fact, having completed its part of the project - the events site – 3chillies was rewarded with responsibility for the entire TEN campaign website.