One of the largest initiatives for SMART Technologies in 2012 was launching their solutions offering for the business market. The idea of absurdity in the work place was used to help open the eyes of other companies that how they were working

together could be vastly improved in this age of technology. A brand new section of SMART's website was created along with promo ads, a brochure and a humorous, light hearted video to tell the story of an absurd day at the office.

This campaign concept intended to illustrate how SMART products could bring students to new heights of success with the visuals showing actual products literally lifting students higher. The main image of the concept centered around a boy

who used a SMART board to reach the top of a proverbial peak. Print ads, web banners, a new education solutions web section (since been removed online) and a multimedia piece were created to support this message.

The idea for this campaign was to focus solely on the reactions of students and the impact of how technology could effect their learning in a positive way. Much like the Buckley's cough syrup commercials would show peoples reaction to the bad tasting medicine, the idea was to show the opposite of that and let the

look on students faces grab peoples attention. Hand drawn visuals were added behind the students to support or enhance what they would be feeling. This visual element became so popular that it would come to be a prominent part of SMART Technologies brand identity.

As a leading technology company, SMART wanted to get the message out that they were innovators. The idea behind the campaign was to transform the regular classroom into amazing and impossible learning situations to see the possibilities with the

innovation of our products. Imagine if you could reach out into space and touch planets and stars, or lift a giant dinosaur skeleton over your head to take a closer look at it. Our goal was to show educators that this was possible.

To launch the new SMART education solutions positioning, this campaign was developed around the idea of comparing old and new forms of learning. I wanted to show that the "old way" of doing things was not necessarily wrong, but rather just more

complex and difficult than if you were to use new technology. The focus was about how simple and easy the solution was and how it was an improvement over the traditional tools found in classrooms.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was an opportunity for schools to take advantage of about 100 billion in funding dollars for education. The campaign was meant to help decision makers spend the money on the right solution that would ensure them long term benefit. The concept centered

around showing a student as they grew up through early childhood, middle school and on to higher education. The visuals created depicted the same student at these ages and how this investment in SMART would benefit them at every level of growth.

This campaign wanted to show the education world that real teachers using SMART products truly do love using the technology and how it has impacted their classrooms in a positive way. Interviews were shot and edited of various

teachers around the U.S., including 2009 national teacher of the year. A website was created to showcase these videos, as well as banner ads on smarttech.com and third party education sites.