IBM Case Study

IBM Case Study

1.) IBM advertises itself as a company that provides service and business solutions. It used to be positioned as a computer hardware company, but as more companies like HP and Dell began to pop up they were forced to move away from this image. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with an IBM sales person, and he said that they very much rely on the value of their products, rather than competing on price. IBM positions themselves as having better, but slightly more costly, products than their competitors. IBM doesn’t want to be seen as just another computer company, but as a company that can help you run your business, and make life all around easier for you.

2.) Prior to 1993 IBM’s advertising was handled by a large number of different agencies. Until the late 80’s this wasn’t a problem because IBM was such a dominant player in the market. However this eventually became a problem as IBM was beginning to loose its identity have portray itself in a wide variety of ways around the country. In 1993 IBM moved all of it’s advertising to Oglivy & Mather whose goal was to “keep the IBM brand fresh, interesting and topical.” In 1995 they introduced “Solutions for a Small Planet.” These ads were meant to create a unified brand image of IBM around the world, while connecting everyone on this “small planet”. This campaign was very successful, and was a huge step in restoring IBM’s image.

In the late 90’s the introduced the “E-Business” campaign. This was to connect with people who were beginning to use the internet more and more for their business and personal use. This was a very good move as using the internet in some way is now a part of almost everyone’s daily activities. This campaign continued...

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...) IBM doesn’t compete on price, but on quality. IBM uses their advertisements to create a very strong identity, and that is of being the best. Customers of IBM are more interested in benefits rather than price, so IBM doesn’t focus on price in their ads. IBM’s campaigns have showed customers how they will benefit, and created incentive for customers to find out how IBM can specifically help them. IBM’s ads do enough to draw in customers to learn more about the products and services, and then end up purchasing.

11.) This was a very good move by IBM. On one hand it could prove very difficult, and possibly too much to handle for one company to handle this much work for one client, but Oglivy and Mather have done a great job. This has created a much stronger, unified, image of IBM worldwide. Also it has made transitions from one campaign to the next much easier.