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HP Marketing goes web 2.0 in the US

Published 14 July 2006, 05:44 PM

I blogged on May 1 about the amazing success of YouTube and the impact on viral marketing strategies and wondered how quickly the medium would take off with mainstream advertising. Since I posted, YouTube’s traffic has doubled (yes, doubled!!!) and we decided that it was time for HP to get in the game. I thought I would give you the story behind the story of yesterday’s announcements and share my discussion with Tracey Trachta, Director WW & US Consumer Advertising, who manages these new online campaigns.

Some bloggers will accuse me of doing PR for HP, but I just think these are cool initiatives :-)

. Tracey, why did you decide to experiment with new online techniques?

“HP wants to be more relevant to a younger generation and given the types of achievers we selected (Jay-Z, Shawn White, Mark Cuban, Pharrell Williams), it only felt natural to go where the people are. These channels are developing very quickly and have a significant viral impact on our target audience. And frankly, they are more cost effective than traditional vehicles even if we are also using those in the campaign’s second wave”

. What are the key components of this online campaign?

“We have posted the new TV ads for the Personal Again campaign, featuring key achievers on YouTube and Google Video. We will have a profile in the myspace tech section (live next week) for our entertainment notebook, featuring personal tools for rock star products. We are partnering with Yahoo! to organize a Yahoo! Entertainment homepage takeover (Live on August 9) featuring our entertainment products under the tag line: like you, it craves entertainment.

On our micro-site -The computer is personal again, we have featured the private desktops of key achievers featured in the ads and they are proving to be very popular, especially the making of the ads. Finally, we are also enabling consumers to create their own commercials and build their own Personal again campaigns and personal desktops”. Check out mine !

. How do you protect the HP brand?

“We obviously want to protect the HP brand while appealing to a younger generation. We have been very selective about the sites we used – and even the sections within those sites. We have to balance new technologies and making sure the HP brand is not in a place where we don’t want HP to be seen”.

. Can you share some first results?

“As an example, the Jay-Z campaign is one of the top 5 most viewed Jay-Z videos on YouTube and has generated more than 30 000 downloads in a month and an incredible amount of links in blogs”.

The comments have been overall positive in the blogosphere so far. Catharine P. Taylor at Adfreak calls the work "an artful paean to how personal our computers have become, stuffed with our journal entries, MP3 files and vacation photos" and mentions that ‘in a nod to consumer-generated media, which in this case makes massive amounts of strategic sense, visitors can create and share their own versions of the spots”. Chris Thilk at Adjab highlights that HP has “finally realized generating word of mouth by targeting services people are already using is more powerful than just throwing a bunch of traditional ads out there and hoping some stick in people's minds” (even if he disapproves us using facebook and myspace). David Burn at Adpulp calls it good stuff.

Posted By Eric Kintz | 4 Comments | Trackbacks | Permalink
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Comments

UPDATE: my blogging friend Chris Tilk (Adjab, Movie Marketing Madness) shot me an email to clarify his problem with using facebook and myspace: 1) "No one has yet shown me that it's actually an effective way to influence or empower the audience. Yes, people add the profile as a "friend" and there's good numbers to be had there, but at some point that needs to translate into sales. This might just be a thing with me but I'm not seeing the value of the social networking sites just yet. Remember, though, that I'm kind of slow. 2) I think there's going to be a very big backlash soon against companies invading on this turf. It will be the exact reverse of old people yelling "hey you kids, get off my lawn!" It will be "hey you old people, get out of our sandbox! Now like I said, it might just be me. When someone can make an effective pitch to me about the value of doing this my mind will be changed". Chris- you make very valid points and the jury is clearly still out there, we are still experimenting. But as the younger generation shifts their entertainment time to social networks and gaming, brands will want to be where they are. We need to find the best way to do that and these experiments will greatly help us Eric
# Sunday, July 16, 2006 01:17 PM by Eric Kintz
As with many things, the mechanism of viral marketing--using the web to generate buzz--can be a double-edged sword. The YouTube video "A Comcast Technician Sleeping on my Couch" and the recording of the AOL customer canceling his account on the blog "Insignificant Thoughts" have created a lot of negative press for these companies. But, not only negative press. AOL has received inquiries from the New York State Attorney General's office regarding a 2005 agreement with regulators. Companies are also impacted by "traditional" means of sharing information on the web such as user forums and reviews. Let me share a personal experience. Currently, I am researching the forums before I buy an HP notebook. I have read many negative comments about HP customer service and the keyboard on the dv8000t. This information, along with an expired e-coupon that I received in an HP newsletter today, has created uncertainty in my purchase decision. In effect, a negative customer experience has been created before I even purchased a product. Thus, a company can suffer from "word of mouth" on the web as well as benefit from it. Yet, I believe this is actually good for a company. A customer-oriented organization will use the bad buzz on the web to fine tune its marketing, sales, and customer support processes. However, the challenge for a company is to not overreact but to filter out the hype in order to use the negative buzz effectively. (The consumer also has a responsibility to filter out the hype from the web. But, that may be more of a challenge for a company to influence.)
# Sunday, July 16, 2006 02:37 PM by dmccall32210
Doug- I have taken action to have your problem resolved. Feel free to comment back if our response was not satisfactory and I am sure you will enjoy your dv8000t - Eric
# Friday, July 21, 2006 08:59 PM by Eric Kintz
Well, I like the idea of web 2.0 marketing of hp.
# Monday, September 18, 2006 08:58 AM by moedinger

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