By now, you've no doubt noticed the clever and engaging ad campaign designed,
if not to remake IBM, to make it appear more approachable. Two Frenchmen
ambling along the Seine making throaty comments about technology; a passel of
nuns, floating through a Renaissance cloister whispering reverentially about
eye-bee-em. They are the inspired product of a whole bunch of creative folks at
Ogilvy & Mather, a New York-based ad agency.
Already, I feel the need to correct myself. To cognoscenti of Madison Avenue,
Ogilvy & Mather is no simple ad agency. It tallies 272 offices that promote
consumption in 64 countries. Among the corporate images it buffs are those of
Ford and American Express. And, at today's prices, ad agencies have long
dropped the confining and diminutive describer "ad" and reinvented themselves
as marketing and communications companies.
In any event, in the spring of 1994, IBM sent a seismic seizure through Madison
Avenue by announcing it was seeking to consolidate all of its global
advertising under a single agency. One can only imagine how many careers were
made and shattered in the scramble.
"We were invited to present our credentials," said John White, a key player in
the IBM campaign, and when the smoke cleared, Ogilvy & Mather was still
standing.
IBM wanted an ad campaign reflective of the changes reshaping the corporation,
according to Julie Furey, director of communications for the AS/400 Division.
It wanted to present a human face while promoting its traditional strengths:
technology and superior products.
"We tried to position IBM as a more dynamic and contemporary company,"
explained White. He also used the word "hip," which may mark the first time
that "hip" and "IBM" were ever used in the same sentence.
Nonetheless, Ogilvy & Mather had a distinctive idea: show unexpected people
using technology, like Irish shepherds, Greek fishermen, grandfatherly
Frenchmen, and devout nuns. Not the chill of boardrooms, but the warmth of a
Vermeer painting, pulling back the curtain on everyday life and sampling the
innocence found there. And to give it an extra measure of credence, the
commercials would be shown in the language of origin, using subtitles.
The beauty of the concept lay in its curious combination of simplicity and
sophistication, both derived from the same source: a foreign and exotic
setting, contrasting the ultramodern world of information technology. The
subtitles were barely necessary. No matter the language, IBM iz IBM, ne c'est
pas?
The first commercials were designed to raise brand name awareness. The second
wave promotes specific products, which brings us to the curious marriage of
surfing (I don't mean the 'net) and the AS/400. In selling the AS/400, Ogilvy &
Mather used the same approach it applied to brand name marketingùfind an
unusual location (the beach), and show unexpected technology users (surfers).
Subtitles were also used even though this commercial was shot in English. Well,
sort of.
For those who have not seen it, here is a sample bit of dialogue.
Lobo: Squids, we got snaked big time in Barney land.
Peter: Harsh.
Misha: They dreamed green room.
Peter: We sent shore slop.
You get the idea. Or perhaps you don't. The surf shop, it seems, sent burnt
sienna surfboards to a customer who ordered lime. Well, only an AS/400 could
straighten that mess out. After quickly agreeing to buy one, someone exclaims,
"Pure guava" (a surf's up version of "far out"), and the relieved wave jockeys
grab their boards and trot toward the water. Subtitles were deemed necessary
because, according to the translation I received, Lobo's first line translates
as "Colleagues. We missed a major opportunity in the Tri-State Area." That
would have been my next guess.
The New York-based creative team got a big assist from its Los Angeles
counterparts on the surfing spot. When the East Coast creative director called
the West Coast creative director, he found that the Californian was a surfing
enthusiast. However, even a surfing ad executive isn't likely to go around
calling his colleagues "squids," so he obtained the services of an L.A. County
lifeguard to capture the finer nuances of surfing lingo. The reader can thus be
reassured that the dialogue is authentic and that surfers really do talk that
way.
By any measurement, the ad campaign has been wildly successful. It has been
honored by industry awards and enjoys broad viewer acceptance according to
Furey. Most significantly, from IBM's perspective, the ads jolted sales,
helping push AS/400 shipments past the 300,000 mark and contributing to a
double-digit sales increase in the last half of 1994. The ads also encouraged a
significant shift in the way network users viewed midrange systems: a full 40
percent are now considering an AS/400 to handle their networking needs.
Such things are known because more research is done on the effects of
advertising than on cures for baldness and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Before
a commercial airs, it is shaped by the preferences of focus groups, research
groups, strategy groups, and the target audience's viewing habits. After it
airs, assorted marketing research firms chart audience reaction, product name
recall, corporate identity rate, and something Furey calls "image tracking."
Whatever that is, it is highly regarded in marketing circles and has to do with
what people are looking for when they buy and how a company's marketing efforts
affect buying patterns and customer preferences. Thus, according to Elliott
Research, the AS/400's top-of-mind awareness is now three times higher than
Digital's and nearly seven times greater than Hewlett Packard's.
Awards, too, are important in marketing, if only to persuade corporate
customers that their advertising dollars were well spent. Americans love
winners and losers, and industry associations and publications hand out awards
like Halloween candy. The AS/400 definitely weighs in with the winners, having
amassed three page-fulls of awards. A recent notable acquisition is the Mobius
Award, presented by the U.S. Festivals Association. Five thousand entrants from
35 countries were keen on winning, but the AS/400 prevailed for excellence in
image building (Furey will be pleased), corporate identity, and customer
relations.
Ogilvy & Mather is also responsible for print ads that have enjoyed similar
success. Another research group, Baxter Research, ranked IBM's AS/400 "Black
Goes With Everything" ad "highest in attracting their attention," giving IBM
higher marks than AT&T, Motorola, and Northern Telecom. Why it is desirable to
attract the attention of Baxter Research is not clear, but the assumption is
that failing to attract their attention would be bad.
Another print ad is worthy of note, not for its awards, but for its aggressive
response to a perceived threat by a competitor. After the appearance of a Wall
Street Journal article in which Hewlett Packard targeted IBM's midrange
customers for migration, Furey and Ogilvy & Mather shot back with a two-page ad
under the heading, "To become No. 1 in the business computer market, it takes
more than just shooting at the leader."
The first page was largely devoted to rubbing HP's nose in it. "Hewlett Packard
has no plans for a 64-bit chip next year. Or the next. Or even the next. They
are asking customers to wait until the end of the decade." Take that. And,
"more than 25,000 applications have been announced for AS/400 customersùthree
times as many as HP." And the cruelest blow: "Since May, a new AS/400 Advanced
System is being shipped every ten minutes."
The second page has a small IBM logo at the bottom right and a doodled arrow in
the center aiming off to the left over the caption "Nice try, HP." I asked
Furey if naming names was an advertising trend. "No," she replied. IBM was just
defending its turf. Hell knows no Furey like a corporation scorned.
Awards, surveys, and sales are not the only indicators of a marketing
campaign's success. Furey and White recounted an incident that confirmed their
campaign's influence in a much more charming and compelling way than any
research report. It happened during a PGA golf tournament that IBM,
incidentally, sponsors. A golfer sank an improbable curving putt. Lifting his
club triumphantly, he turned to the camera and said, "Pure guava."
Victor Rozek has 17 years of experience in the data processing industry,
including seven years with IBM in Operations Management and Systems
Engineering.
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