Marketing’s role is first and foremost about driving demand and preference for the brand, products, services and solutions through a clear value proposition to customers. Achieving this goal and cutting through the clutter requires a “wow” factor, connecting emotionally with customers from the ad campaign to the flagship products and entire customer experience. It also requires discipline and rigor in executing and delivering the brand promise consistently across touchpoints.

Marketers will need to drive this in a context of increasing power in the hands of customers and distrust of marketing: according to Yankelovich Monitor, “53% of consumers say that they are still at the mercy of marketers and advertisers but 81% also say that they feel much more knowledgeable and powerful today about what they buy and where they shop than ever before”. People want it their way; they want products that express their own sense of self. My colleague Sam Lucente, HP’s design chief, clearly outlined this trend in a November 2005 Business Week interview: "At a high level, maybe it's more long term, but things move from mass production to mass customization to individualization to personalization. People want to feel like an individual." Personalization is an extension of the belief in the opportunity to re-invent oneself; the ability to become who and what we want to be.

Case in point of this new trend is the new marketing campaign that we are launching today in support of our PC business. This is our first ever global integrated marketing campaign for our PC business, in which we are investing several hundred million dollars. For a sneak preview, look at the campaign website which features hot products and a viewing room. The campaign focuses on the personal relationship people have with their computers, unique to each user – putting more emphasis on empowering customers, and less emphasis on the technical characteristics. The campaign's tagline is "The Computer is Personal Again."

For television and web, we will be highlighting celebrities and how their PCs are personal to them. At first, the viewer will only see the achievers hands, and each personality will be revealed by showing what types of things they do and have on their PCs. The first to be named are U.S. Olympic gold medalist and professional snowboarder Shaun White (the Flying Tomato) and reality TV pioneer Mark Burnett. We will also be joining with MTV’s college network, mtvU, on the “Meet or Delete” series of 4-minute episodes that follow college students as they size each other up and decide if they’d like to meet, based solely on the contents of their hard drives.

This relevance and personalization will go beyond advertising to products and the entire customer experience and lifecycle. Digital entertainment is an example of one rapidly growing area of personal interest for consumers. HP has been a pioneer in this space from being the first PC manufacturer to offer Media Center PCs to our new Media Smart TVs that allow you to access digital content from PCs anywhere in your home. HP Snapfish, our online photo service, is another great example of personalization. On its site, customers can select from more than 70 unique, customized photo products to choose from. Other innovative, personal technology examples in our PCS include QuickPlay (play a DVD or music with no need to boot the PC) and LightScribe (personalized, silk-screen label onto your CD). And this is just the beginning. We have also extended this personalization through HP Total Care, which encompasses the complete lifecycle of services which provide customers a better experience. From choosing a PC, to configuring it, protecting it, tuning it up – all the way to recycling it.

Let me know what you think of our new campaign and what suggestions you have for more personalization!