Category: Internal Communications
Advertiser: JWT
Product/Service: TIMESHEET
Agency: JWT BRAZIL
Agency: GIUSTI COMUNICAÇÃO
Executive Creative Director: Ricardo John (JWT)
Creative Director/Copywriter: Gustavo Soares (JWT)
Producer/Account Supervisor: Rodrigo Alberini (JWT)
Executive Creative Director: Roberto Fernandez (JWT)
Art Director: Guilherme Sakosigue (JWT)
Creative Technologist: Cristiano Dias (JWT)
Graphic Producer: Flavio Schaefer (JWT)
Graphic Producer: Flavio Colella (JWT)
Illustration: Pedro Galdi (JWT)
Photographer: Regis Fernandez (JWT)
Photographer: Felipe Madureira (JWT)
Account Manager: Fernanda Antonelli (JWT)
Planner: Fernand Alphen (JWT)
President: Guilherme Gomide (Agência Casa)
Thecnology And Innovation Director: Felipe Gomide (Agência Casa)
Account Manager: Rodrigo Alberini (JWT)
Media placement: Ambient - JWT Sao Paulo, Rio, Curitiba - 6/04/2012
Summary of the Campaign
Timesheets are mandatory, official, unattractive. Nobody ever remembers to fill it out. This happens everywhere in the world: people hate filling in their hours. JWT and Casa had just launched a new interface for the timesheet, aiming to make it friendlier, and decided it should be announced in a big way.
Instead of creating posters or end marketing, we created this initiative: reward people for enduring an obligation. We built a fridge, filled with beer that was electronically sealed. 1 fridge was placed at each of the company's offices, at places where people gather. It carried the message: 'it will only open after 100% of the timesheets are filled in.
The results: people talk about it in corridors, and press each other about their timesheet doing. Outside the agency it resonated so well that it has since appeared on TV news, finance and management publications and even on Contagious, a very prestigious site.
The Situation
JWT and Casa (Digital agency) have 6 offices in 3 cities of Brazil. It's Brazil's third largest operation in the ad/communication market. It depends heavily on individual timesheets as a tool to plan the allocation of manpower and other assets among clients. It tells the company how many hours per person each project is taking.
Filling Time Sheet means calculating how much time was spent on each task. So it is often neglected for being boring and seemingly pointless. Since companies all over the world rely on it, late or unfilled timesheets are a big problem.
The Goal
Every big company in the world knows how important and also how boring the timesheet is. We took the opportunity of the launch of a new interface to solve an internal problem - increase timesheet hours filled in - and to also create a self promotion piece. It is very easy to measure the return on this initiative: the fridge only opens once 100% of time sheet hours are filled in.
The Strategy
Every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the whole agency gets a funny piece regarding the fridge by email. There is a monitor showing the timesheets' progress on the fridge's side. Also a siren fires off when the fridge is open. We filmed all this as it happened, and shared it on the agencies' blogs. Buzz was immediate.
Execution
Each of the company's 6 offices in Brazil has its own timesheet requirements. The timesheet server of each branch was hooked onto a metre, programmed to open an electronic lock installed into fridges full of beer and other drinks. The fridges are permanent and have become part of the agency's image as a cool place to work.
Coding is simple, but a special technology (similar to the Arduino board) was used. It converts computer commands into electrical commands. Once the goal of 100% is reached within the server, the board tells the lock to open itself. During the week employees receive an email about its progress which leads to people nagging each other, inducing positive peer pressure.
Besides making Fridays happier, the fridge has managed to transform the task of timesheet filling into a fun thing, envied and cheered by companies all over the world.
Documented Results
The fridge opening itself means success for the initiative. It launched on April 06, and has opened every Friday ever since, in all 6 branches of the company. It has appeared on Contagious, CCSP, Voxnews, Brainstorm9, Época Negócios, SBT TV (News). On social networks the amount of mentions has been difficult to measure. We have received positive reviews from Waxy.com, Hyper Island and other important members of the online community.