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The Brief

BSA | The Software Alliance helps the world largest software developers effectively work with governments and the international marketplace so they can grow and expand responsibly. With tens of thousands of companies using illegal or unlicensed software in Southeast Asia, a key BSA objective is to reduce unlicensed software use and incentivize companies to shift their practices towards compliance with intellectual property laws.

In 2020, for the third year in a row, we supported BSA |The Software Alliance in their efforts to promote legal software use in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. As the COVID-19 pandemic started rolling over Asia, we found that it was putting business owners under financial stress, making them reluctant to invest in compliance and software licenses.

Our research showed that cyber threats skyrocketed in the wake of the pandemic and that businesses in Southeast Asia were among the least prepared in the world to face cyber-attacks. In 2019 the Philippines entered the top 10 target countries for cyberattacks worldwide, and McAfee has found that Thailand is the 7th most-targeted country for COVID-19-related attacks. Cybercriminals often depend on security vulnerabilities in software, so fully licensed software across the entire company network is a crucial step in protecting against malware attacks.

Execution

Built upon a white paper and a deep retargeting strategy across traditional and new media, the 8-month Cyber Crime Prevention Campaign advocated to Southeast Asian enterprise leaders the idea that the pandemic and financial crisis were critical reasons for companies to invest in legal software and protect digital assets. Integrated and fully digital, it was based on two distinct strategies:

• Do not threaten; instead serve and assist: Qualitative research found that offering contextual reasons for business owners to shift to safer practices was more efficient than threatening them with potential legal risks. Our creative approach positioned BSA as a provider of free educational content and counseling with its consultants.
• Educate, everywhere, before you change behaviors: Our campaign was split into two phases: successively educating across a variety of media, then converting with highly targeted communication tactics online.

The first phase launched with an e-book, available in English, Bahasa, and Vietnamese, which was surrounded by satellite educational content – a dedicated landing page, reports in traditional media, an email campaign, and social media posts – all of which helped educate and generate leads to prepare for the second phase of the campaign.

The second phase, launched in August 2020, segmented the database we had generated in the first phase and identified eight distinct interests and behavioral personae of prospects. Each was then re-targeted with a distinct content strategy via LinkedIn, digital advertising networks, and a segmented email campaign, incentivizing them to connect with a BSA consultant to receive free assistance with software compliance. The landing page we built featured randomized lead-building cards which provided data points regarding the risks associated with illegal software use. Our content strategy and e-mail campaign were designed to adapt to the card that had generated the lead, delivering a message aligned with the visitor’s interest. The leads were then converted by BSA’s direct calling teams.

Throughout the campaign, our teams organized five regional briefings with key media, both in-person and online, and managed to onboard and involve government representatives in Indonesia (Henri Subiakto, staff from Minister of Communication and Information) and the Philippines (Anselmo Adriano, Chairman and CEO, OMB, Office Of The President).

Total coverage: 157 distinct articles published in top tier media across four countries.
Total number of tracked legalized companies: 8,225