Game on: Injecting retro fun back into channel promotions

Ingram Micro and Dell Technologies have come up with the perfect reason for resellers to play retro arcade games at work.

Running from April to September, they've created a channel promotion aimed at engaging the entire team and reliving some nostalgic fun at the same time.

Simply put, the promotion is one where resellers play retro arcade games, score points, and then sell Dell products for a point multiplier.

Regular result updates are emailed to partners so they can keep track of their positions on the scoreboard.

At the end of September, the top three partners in four different divisions will be announced as winners to cater to the different-sized resellers.

Channel promotions tend to run the same way: sell a set target of a vendor's product to go into the draw to win a prize.

Ingram Micro business manager Jamie Hall says, "Most campaigns in the channel will end with one or two representatives from a winning reseller enjoying the result.

"This often means, the wider team's still instrumental in the sales result miss out and in some scenarios, this works against the promotion. Rather than teams getting excited, they switch off.

The Ingram Micro Dell Technologies team wanted to shake things up and drive some nostalgic team fun for everybody within participating reseller businesses to get involved in, creating some friendly reseller-vs-reseller competition, while driving sales, engagement and education.

"A combination of learnings from previous promotions and our enthusiasm to bring something cool, different and competitive to the channel really started the idea for Dell GAME ON.

"We wanted to do something that gave everyone in the business a chance to be involved.

We also wanted to drive some friendly competition between resellers," says Hall.

The challenge was to find something that would be relevant to a wide audience and also relevant regardless of business size, giving everyone a chance to win.

Another challenge was complexity – the team needed to come up with a way to keep the campaign dynamics as simple as possible.

Thus, Dell GAME ON was born - game to earn points, sell Dell to earn your multiplier, compete against other NZ resellers in your division to win.

"It is still early days, but the reception has been very positive," Hall says.

The Ingram Micro Dell Technologies team extended this commitment to fun and friendly competition on the exhibition floor at this year's Ingram Micro Showcase.

Ingram Micro Showcase, New Zealand's biggest technology trade show, visits Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch each year and provides a perfect forum for channel partners to engage with vendors and their latest solutions and an opportunity to network with them and other colleagues and industry professionals.

Hall says, "Ingram Micro Showcase 2019 ran very early on in our GAME ON promotion so we took a risk and themed our stand completely around Dell GAME ON rather than the Dell technology itself.

The booth was decked out with retro arcade machines, a live smartphone quiz with a leaderboard and grand prize (aiming to educate attendees on the campaign and Dell), gamepad giveaways, and live bonus challenges.

These were all designed to draw people in multiple times throughout the event.

With the Dell Team prepared and on standby, conversations and business opportunities flowed throughout the day with Dell solution engagements requested and booked.

"The consistent feedback we got was that we have shown a new and exciting side to Dell Technologies which kicked us into technology discussions as a follow-on.

The team couldn't be happier with the result. Resounding positive feedback including on the #DellGAMEON social media hashtag has validated the effectiveness of the approach.