SUCCESS IN A DOWN MARKET
How do you double sales in a declining market?
Hellbent was the marketing agency for Trolltech AS (a software company that created Qt, a development toolkit) from late 2000 to early 2003—the trough of the worst technology-market downturn in history. During those two years:
  • The DJIA declined 37 percent (from 11358 to 8303)
  • The NASDAQ 100 plummeted 74 percent (from 425 to 110)
  • And Trolltech's worldwide sales doubled—twice.

                MEMORABLE ADVANTAGES

                Why? It certainly wasn't by outspending their competitors on marketing. Trolltech is an archetypal engineering company. They have beautiful technology, a small core of fanatical customers, ruthless competitors—and only a rudimentary understanding of market dynamics.

    		• Before Hellbent redesigned the Trolltech web site, it was without a positioning statement, without a coherent navigation scheme, and without any graphical interest. Afterwards it had all three -- and a large role in helping the company double its sales.
    Hellbent didn't have the budget to "carpet bomb" its targets. Instead, we "created" our way to success by systematically identifying Qt's advantages—both technical and business—and making them memorable across all media.

                MANY AUDIENCES, MANY TACTICS

                We came up with the one-word message "Unfair" (as in "Qt: The Unfair Advantage in Application Development"), and made it the foundation for every Trolltech marketing program—including a two-year ad campaign, a full set of product and corporate collateral, trade show signs, public relations, and (most important) a 347-page web site for which we created the architecture, design, and all content.

                The biggest challenge at Trolltech was communicating with its many audiences: engineers, C-level officers, industry analysts, the press, and all segments of the Linux community, including free-software ideologues. So we adapted our tactics to the audience. We created one brochure whose content was three compilable applications, other brochures that focused on business benefits only, and ads whose message was carried by a series of hilarious Photoshopped photographs of unfair competitions.

                We were technical, business-focused, serious, and funny. But did we succeed? Let's put it this way: Companies don't grow in a downturn by accident.

    The ad campaign at left distilled all of Qt's competitive advantages into a single word: Unfair. Multiple Addy, Harvey Readership awards.
    Web page showing dramatic examples of program screenshots achieved with Trolltech’s powerful software.