Freshworks: advert-body-1 by Funworks

Freshworks, a startup customer engagement software company, took on its biggest rival at Salesforce's massive annual conference in San Francisco, Dreamforce, and it used a blimp and other out-of-home (OOH) messages as weapons.

Freshworks took to the skies with a #Failsforce blimp that circled Salesforce Tower (the tallest building in San Francisco) all week long. It used other guerrilla tactics like taking to the streets with a marching band, and a complete 360 campaign called ‘Hit Refresh.’

The entire ‘gate-crashing’ campaign, blimp and all, was conceived in one of Funworks’ improv-inspired collaborative workshops.

The campaign was designed to spread the message that now is the time for companies to replace their bloated SaaS CRM solutions with simple customer engagement software, ideally for them with Freshworks products.

The blimp was a success as news of its flight flooded social media, resulting in pictures and posts. A few highlights included a "Failsforceblimp" Twitter handle and Blimp Merch (tees, stickers, and mugs), all created by fans of the blimp with no ties to the campaign.