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DocuSign
Next time, DocuSign

The challenge

DocuSign, the digital document signing and agreement platform that’s transforming the way the rest of the world agrees, approached Hardhat to help them do the same in Australia. Already established internationally as #1 for electronic signatures, we were tasked to produce an Influencer Marketing campaign that would make more Australian businesses aware of the benefits of using DocuSign.

Research told us organisations considered the transition away from paper contracts as a distant future thing they should do. Our objective became shifting perceptions from ‘one day’ to ‘today’.

Refers to our preference for keeping things the way they are, even if it’s not the best option for us.

Behavioural insight  |  Status Quo Bias

The solution

Our job was convincing paper-contract-signing business leaders that doing nothing was the riskiest choice of all. After all, a lot more could go awry by using outmoded paper contracts: documents get lost in the mail, privacy issues, the printer runs out of toner and so on.

With this in mind, we created the ‘Next time, DocuSign’ campaign, which asked business influencers to share a time a deal nearly fell over due to preventable mistakes that could have been easily eradicated if they’d only used DocuSign. At the same time, digital banners and social ads caught eyes with punchy and bright creative, reminding people of all that goes wrong with paper.

To get the message across, we engaged three iconic and trusted Australian business influencers and entrepreneurs, Business Chicks Global CEO Emma Issaccs, Boost Juice’s Janine Allis and Tribes’ Jules Lund, for a social video series called ‘That Time I Screwed Up’.

From printing blunders to contract mishaps, our influencers shared humorous personal stories about when key deals in their careers went catastrophically wrong due to using paper contracts.

The campaign was pushed through paid channels including LinkedIn and Youtube, and organically through the influencers' own social channels for further reach.

Our always-on content cut through the hum of LinkedIn perfection, catching the eye of business professionals who, too, shared their most significant mishaps. In addition, our suite of supporting ‘Next time, DocuSign’ assets was pushed widely across social and digital as a consistent reminder.

The results

By reframing paper contracts as the real risk, we managed to shift B2B professionals out of the inertia caused by Status Quo bias. The campaign has been viewed over 3,000,000 times on YouTube and continues to gain traction with DocuSign reporting record results. Key metrics include:

 

16,644
new trial accounts created
17%
increase in awareness
44%
increase in Australian website traffic QoQ
2.79x
CTR stronger than Linkedin benchmark
  • Recognition

  • MumbrellaCommscon Awards 2022 - WINNER Best Influencer Strategy MumbrellaCommscon Awards 2022 - HIGHLY COMMENDED Best B2B Campaign