A More Aggressive IBM

01/23/02

IBM spends about $700 million a year on advertising (according to the Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2002).  For that much money you can do some really interesting stuff and they do.

For example, for more than four years, they have entertained television audiences with distinctive letterboxed ads, with their blue borders and black-and-white documentary style short films – all around the theme of IBM as a good partner, a good source for technology.

This time they’ve outdone themselves, with a new group of ads in the series, created to look like a basketball game.  Watch the players’ jerseys – these players are IBM’s Infrastructure team (in Blue, of course) versus Crash (the bad guys in black).  Played by famous former NBA players, the IBM team features Mainframe, Middleware, PC, Linux, and Firewall.  Crash includes Hacker, Virus, Spike, Downtime, and Spam.  The theme is integration and the three I’ve seen so far use humor to try to deliver messages about strategy, infrastructure, and integration. 

I’d expect them to be as talked about as some of the earlier “hot” ads in this series – remember the whispering Nuns?

But that’s not all.

On January 24^th, IBM’s Global Services will launch a big ad campaign around a new IBM concept “e-Business on demand:  the next utility.”  It makes a strong pitch for the idea that you wouldn’t build an electric plant if you needed more electricity – you’d just buy more power from the electric company.  Likewise for water, gas, and telephone service.  IBM would like you to think of computing the same way and this is the kick-off for their new campaign. 

It’s persuasive as a concept – but to close the sale, they’ll have to sell more than the “simple, accessible, reliable, affordable” mantra of the ads.  Customers will need to size it up against competitors and alternatives, both for cost and also for the range of applications and the degree of customization the e-business on demand utility can support. 

With AT&T announcing new and enhanced hosting solutions on January 22^nd. we suspect the race for a new market is officially on. Comparisons will inevitably follow.    

References:

On IDG.net:  http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=630293

In the New York Times:  http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=630293

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