Other Services
Digital Video 
Fast and focused
HAL Knowledge Solutions, based in Bracknell in the UK, is a leading European provider of software and services. HAL specialises in bringing visibility to legacy IT systems, enabling companies to completely understand their IT infrastructure and to make informed decisions on how to get the best out of their business processes.
HAL became involved with CoffeehouseDigital when one of its biggest customers, banking group HSBC, was planning a major global forum involving its top 60 heads of IT from around the world. HSBC’s Europe and India division wanted to use the opportunity to promote the work it had been doing with HAL, but the forum was less than two months away.
"It was a plea for help," explains HAL Vice-President of Marketing Mark Kusionowicz. "HSBC wanted to mount an internal stand at the forum as a showcase for the HAL project. But these guys are technicians, not marketers so they asked me if I could help. As head of marketing, I was very very keen to get HSBC to tell us and tell the world how well we had done for them and I had already talked to CoffeehouseDigital about what sort of activities would support this.
"I came back to CoffeehouseDigital and after discussions we concluded the best solution would be a combination of video presentation, interview and recorded demonstration of what HAL had done with HSBC, which would run automatically on a plasma screen in an exhibition booth. That was the end of November. Time was very short - the forum was taking place in London on January 9."
CoffeehouseDigital immediately got to work. The interview recording was completed and edited together with a product demonstration to create a first version within two weeks and
the final 18-minute video loop presentation was successfully completed in good time.
Clear message
"The response was excellent," says Mark Kusionowicz. "It was like having a HAL sales representative at an internal HSBC conference. It was all very, very positive and everybody said how clearly the message came across. The capability of CoffeehouseDigital to create such a quality piece of work was impressive. It delivered a very professional image to the customer. The video interview with the HSBC executive presented a succinct and clear message of the key important things that HAL does, which is exactly what we employed CoffeehouseDigital to produce. Also it should be said that it was only through excellent project management that the material was deliverable in time for the conference, which was something that I think the HSBC communications people didn't expect us to be able to do."
The HSBC video has since been used extensively as collateral for other HAL sales and marketing campaigns. The success of CoffeehouseDigital in clearly articulating the key benefits of HAL’s offering has even helped to focus HAL’s own perception. “It actually helped us clarify our own messaging in many ways,” concludes Mark Kusionowicz. “The fact that it is HSBC saying things like ‘only Hal could do this’ in the video interview has been a great help. Our main clients very much rely on ‘reference-ability’ of other companies in the same field and HSBC is a worldwide name and a brand that everybody understands and respects. It is probably not overstating it to say that for our sales managers this is the best sales tool in their kit at the moment.”
