IBM on a promo binge, will spend $800m on ad campaign

By Adam Pasick

NEW YORK: IBM Corp is set to launch a huge advertising campaign on in a move to promote the company's "on-demand computing" initiative. IBM Chief Executive Sam Palmisano told Reuters on Wednesday that the company plans to spend $700 million to $800 million over the next year on the campaign, which began with a spoof ad earlier this week. This campaign will officially kick off with an eight-page advertising insert in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and San Jose Mercury News.

By contrast, IBM spent $314.8 million on advertising in 2001, according to media tracking firm CMR. The $700 million to $800 million figure cited by Palmisano also includes categories such as sponsorships and direct mail, which are not measured by CMR.

The spoof ad, which appeared in the Times Business section, touted a fictional company called Bagotronics that purportedly sells a "Business Time Machine" powered by "quark-gluon plasma chip technology."

The website (http://www.bagotronics.com) features an infomercial starring actor Ben Vereen, and also offer such fictitious products as "magic business beans" and a "business reality detector."

"In a weird way the gizmos served (to illustrate) the purpose of what IBM is doing in a physical form, and also the hype and unfulfilled promises of the technology world," said Chris Wall, executive creative director at Ogilvy, which created the campaign. Ogilvy is a unit of London-based advertising giant WPP Group.

Technology firms, especially those like IBM whose products and services are hard and complex to explain and not camera-friendly, have struggled to make compelling, entertaining ads.

One notable exception has been a series of commercials from software maker Computer Associates, one of which illustrated the need for data backup by subjecting a nameless company's employees to various violent mishaps on the way to an important meeting.

IBM's "e-business on demand" campaign will include both television and newspaper ads. They highlight IBM's newly acquired PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting business and Big Blue's devotion to Linux, the free computer operating system that is touted as an alternative to Windows and Unix.

"The technology business has been so doom and gloom," said Wall, who has previously worked on ad campaigns for Apple and Microsoft. With the sardonic, tongue-in-cheek IBM ads, "we wanted to say there were exciting things going on," he said.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Humer)

© Reuters