How To Make Accounting Software Cool
It was too weird to be true. In late 2006, a series of videos appeared on YouTube about a Willow Springs, Ill., resident named Kyle Bone who’d created a successful product called “the anti-shirt” - a shirt that exposed the area of one’s torso that a normal tee shirt would cover and revealed the area that would otherwise be exposed. In short, said Bone, it cured the age-old problem of “farmer’s tan.”
Viewers who investigated Bone’s site found a link to another site, www.ideawins.com, where they could enter an American Idol-like search for the best small business idea in America. And, oh, they would also download a free copy of Microsoft Office Accounting.
As you’ve probably guessed, Bone doesn’t actually exist. He was invented by StrawberryFrog, a ten-year-old ad agency based in New York City. StrawberryFrog is one of those small, self-styled renegade shops like Mother, Brooklyn Brothers, and Our Man in Havana that big companies call when they are having trouble moving products and don’t feel they are getting results from their large agencies.
Thanks to StrawberryFrog, more than two million people have downloaded the free version of the accounting software. (The company won’t disclose how many users have upgraded to the paid version, but it claims the number was substantial.) Meanwhile, the agency’s campaign was short-listed for a prestigious Lion award in June at the 2008 Cannes International Advertising Festival. “StrawberryFrog hasn’t been around that long,” says Jane Bedford, founder of The Bedford Group, a consulting firm that helps large corporations select ad agencies. “But they are very well known for their creative work and their digital skills.” Full article.
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