Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Lessons for brand success from Big Blue: IBM at 100 years old


THE WHITEBOARD


While competitive slogans were on the order of "Take Toshiba, Take the World" and "Compaq. Inspiration technology," IBM ran the relatively tame "Solutions for a small planet." If anyone was going to help you take the world it was IBM, but its "small planet" slogan acknowledged the challenges of the changing world we lived in without hyped bravado. Compaq now is gone, of course, while Toshiba is still a major brand, but far south of IBM in power and value.Lesson No. 3: Brand from the inside out.Ironically, even though IBM gets branding right in many ways, its brand name has been the justification for countless alphabet soup tri-letter brands that subsequently struggle to build recognition and attach sufficient meaning to the acronyms. IBM used its full name from 1924 to 1946, and was already a global leader when it switched to IBM. In 1972, it introduced the 13-bar logo it still uses today.IBM also is credited with many employee-friendly policy innovations, including paid vacations, group life insurance, survivor benefits and equal opportunity hiring practices, which Watson described as less about rights and more about gaining a competitive edge that would allow the company to hire the most talented people available.According to IBM's website, founder Thomas J. Watson Sr. introduced an internal one-word slogan in the 1920s: Think. It appeared in the company's publications and on the walls of its factories and offices, and it became a mantra for the business. It was a steadfast reminder from the very top of the corporation: We value innovation and ideas. IBM was, in a sense, a manufacturing company that was entering the knowledge economy about 50 years in advance.David Taylor is president of Lancasterbased Taylor Brand Group, which specializes in brand development and marketing technology. Contact him via www.taylor brandgroup.com.And that's Lesson No. 1 from Big Blue: Stay focused.Its acronym is likely the most well-known in the business world, with most of us able to respond, "International Business Machines," when asked for its origin. IBM is a rock - a no-nonsense, highly trusted brand. After all, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, or so goes one of the all-time great business clich�s.IBM has always sought to be a leader in the business technology of the day. But unlike other brands that attempt the same approach, its vision transcends the technology itself. So when IBM finds it is on the downside of a technology curve, it doesn't go all Six Sigma and try to compete by being more efficient. It dumps the technology and moves on. It created the mass market for PCs, then quietly exited the industry in 2004 when it sold its PC business to Lenovo. It did the same with Lexmark printers and many other successful technical innovations over the years.Other brands are turning 100 this year as well - Whirlpool and Nivea come to mind - but from a branding standpoint, IBM is the best centenarian of them all. One hundred years later, its brand is still not really about the product, but about the thinking behind it.Oh, and in the 55 years since it changed to the acronym, it has spent about 1.2 gazillion dollars in advertising to help us remember it. (Bonus lesson: Use initials if you're already on top and have a ton of money. Otherwise, don't.)Lesson No. 2: Stay within yourself (or: Don't overpromise/overdeliver)."Providing business solutions" may sound like the mission statement for half the companies in the world, but IBM has steadily been a brand that can be depended upon to do just that.Sure, it led the development of the first smart typewriters, mainframe computers and even low-cost printers, but IBM also created the technology for UPC codes, ATMs, the floppy disk, the hard drive, the magnetic strip, the Sabre airline reservation system, Fortran programming language, Watson artificial intelligence and even the financial swap. Whew.Think about the IBM brand for a moment and what comes to mind? Solid. Corporate. Technology. Maybe even a little boring?But look a little deeper into the IBM brand and you'll find in stark contrast to its generic-sounding name one of the most innovative companies ever. Over the last 100 years it has stayed focused on providing practical business solutions to its customers in ways that touch each of us every day.

David Taylor is president of Lancasterbased Taylor Brand Group, which specializes in brand development and marketing technology. Contact him via www.taylor brandgroup.com.




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