Another So-So Effort From Dell

Michael Dell of Dell Inc. (formerly Dell Computer) doesn't need my help. In the latest Forbes 400 list, he was rated the ninth-richest man in America. And his company was cited as one of the world's largest in the Fortune 500. He is, by far, the most successful direct marketer in history.

Just about everybody knows the story of the Texas college kid who started assembling and selling computers from his dorm room back in 1984.

His father protested, “Michael, you've got to stop fooling with computers and concentrate on school. Get your priorities straight. What do you want to do with your life?” And Michael answered, “I want to compete with IBM.”

It turned out he wasn't kidding. Soon his computers were competing in price with the big computer makers of the time. He filed incorporation papers for $1,000 and his little company took off like a rocket.

Michael Dell acknowledges that his business was not built on price alone (or on advertising). He's quick to point out the three pillars of his company's success — value, service and support.

But by 1989 Dell was shelling out $500,000 a year for advertising. In 1990, while Apple, Digital and IBM were cutting back on ads due to the recession, Dell boosted spending to $6 million. Today it's surely much more.

Yet Dell's ads in recent years have struck me as being merely adequate, neither brand-distinctive nor exceptionally persuasive. It could be that Dell didn't need better advertising because it'd been doing so well already.

Lately, though, Dell has slipped in its neck-and-neck race with Hewlett-Packard for top world market share. So you'd think Dell's need for really effective advertising would be especially important. But to me this new ad falls short.

Is it possible the company is too accustomed to being wildly successful without great advertising, and now simply can't shift gears?

Oops! There I go again with one of my unfounded speculations.

Well, as I am fond of pointing out here, a cat can look at a king. And naturally the king and his advertising courtiers obviously know far more than you and I about his business. But maybe we can still learn something about advertising in general by examining this ad's strengths and weaknesses.

It seemed to have two purposes:

• To build the brand as being so whiz-bang that even mighty Google turned to it for help.

• To attract business owners and information technology managers with a promise to help them simplify their IT. The ad does accomplish both, but only in a fancy-design so-so fashion.

I am a great believer in the 10-second rule (which I just made up): What do you get from a print ad in the first 10 seconds?

In this case, what we get is “A Better Built Search Appliance.” Followed by a picture of a yellow Google box of some kind decorated with puzzling unexplained black dots.

And…“How Dell Simplified IT for Google.”

However, the art director rendered the words “Better Built” in such a dark blue against a black background that at a glance the main headline, in white letters, appears to be “A Search Appliance” — which of course doesn't say much.

Even if you read the headline as “A Better Built Search Appliance,” it would seem to appeal only to shoppers who need just that (like Yahoo!, maybe?)

Then the sub-headline, “How Dell Simplified IT For Google,” gets to the point — except for the unfortunate confusion between the pronoun “it” and the abbreviation for information technology. The reader is inclined to glance at it and wonder, “How Dell did what for Google?”

Despite this, the ad manages to achieve a kind of brand-building purpose by bragging about being so good it was able to simplify the IT of even that search colossus.

Then finally, at the bottom, in the sub-subhead, comes the benefit and call to action: “Simplify Your IT at Dell.com/Bettersearch.”

But wait! Oh, no! “Simplify your IT at xxxxxxx xxxxxxx” displayed in white against black pops right out. But the rest of the line, in dark blue against black, is almost impossible to read without considerable study and a magnifying glass.

Still, in its indirect way, I think this ad is supposed to be a kind of announcement.

At an industry conference in Orlando, FL this fall, Michael Dell admitted the company he founded in 1984 had lost some customer focus, and as a result some market share to boot. And he announced a number of new initiatives aimed at restoring the firm's position, including simplifying information technology.

“A lot of companies spend 70% or more of their IT budget just to maintain old systems,” he said, adding that “Dell wants to help clients free up money to reinvent and reinvest in their businesses.”

Now we're getting somewhere! The ad was intended, I believe, to combine a brand-building boast with an announcement of Dell's new emphasis on simplifying IT.

So in my makeover I tried to do a better job of accomplishing both. In my top headline, I announced the news: “Now Dell Has Found New Ways to Help Businesses Like Yours.” Suggesting that it was already helping but is now doing an even better job. “Businesses like yours” makes it broad enough to include others and personal enough to include you.

This is followed by a graphic display of the benefits we're talking about, a banner picked up from Dell's Web site: “Simplify IT. Reclaim Time, Money and People.”

Then it's time to pay off the headline, just as a newspaper does, and which I do with Michael Dell talking to the reader about this new initiative. (I broke one of my own rules by displaying this text in white letters on black, but I kept the type size large enough so it'd be easy to read.)

Next, instead of making the Google story the main display, as the original ad did, I relegated it to a panel headed “How We Helped Google,” where I could explain it in plain English. Alongside is another panel, “How We Can Help Your Business, which implies that if Dell was able to help Google's IT, just think how much it could help you.

This second panel contains an important involvement element: the promise of an online interactive feature. “If you tell us your needs, we'll tell you how we can satisfy them.” This alone, I suspect, would multiply the number of logons by serious prospects at least 10 times, while enhancing Dell's image as a helpful IT resource.

W

The result is an ad which, I admit, is a little junky looking, but still accomplishes far more of the advertiser's presumable original intent. And it illustrates my belief in the possibility and desirability of combining brand-image building with maximized prospect contact and involvement.

What do you think?

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THOMAS L. COLLINS (thomas.l.collins@verizon.net) has been a direct marketing copywriter, ad maker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR.

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