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.