Unisys Targets Just 20 Execs With Ad Campaign

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes, "Security company Unisys is taking niche marketing to a new level, aiming ads at about 20 top executives, delivering custom-covered issues of their Fortune magazine subscriptions, and even placing billboards where these individuals will be likely to see them, the Wall Street Journal reports." From the article: "If an executive flips over the mock Fortune cover, he or she will discover a letter — also individually tailored — from a senior Unisys manager describing challenges in the target's specific industry. The Fortune 'cover wraps' also offer personalized Web addresses, where the executives can find mock news videos that mention their names and tell how they achieved business success. To reinforce the message, Unisys is placing billboards and outdoor signs — albeit without information-chief portraits — close to the executives' offices. Some ads will even appear on video screens in the elevators of their office buildings."

Comments

Cool... or Creepy?

[gbulmash]

I'm torn as to whether this is cool or creepy. On the one hand, it sounds pretty cool because it's so individualized and personalized. On the other hand, if I was the target of this kind of marketing ploy, I might feel like I had a well-connected, well-financed stalker.

People talk about how advertising is becoming more invasive. It's everywhere. But what about when it knows who you are and maybe knows a little too much about you? Imagine a urinal that got your ID from your phone via bluetooth, analyzed your urine, and then said: "Hi, Bob. Noticed a high level of sodium in your urine. Ask your doctor about Gronkaflix XP. Better yet, I see that Doctor Finkelberg is your doctor of record. Say 'yes' if you'd like me to e-mail him the results of my analysis of your urine, Bob."

I don't know. While this Unisys campaign will impress some people as cool, it just makes me feel we're one step closer to nosy urinals.

- Greg

Re:Cool... or Creepy?

[kfg]

On the other hand, if I was the target of this kind of marketing ploy, I might feel like I had a well-connected, well-financed stalker.

They're called "salesmen."

KFG

Re:Cool... or Creepy?

[Captain Splendid]

While this "invasion of privacy" is a little unsettling, we're talking about 20 very high-profile people here, not John Q. public.

Also, everybody seems to be missing the other half of the story, namely how they targeted specifically this small group of people instead of wasting more money on a broader campaign. How much money did they save? How much more were they free to spend since they were targeting such a small group? How does the creativity angle work when you're targeting one guy instead of a large, poorly-defined wad?

The privacy angle here is a red herring. We should be talking about Advertising and marketing getting out of the 19th century.

Re:whats next?

[rbf2000]

So, whatever happened to good old fashioned house calls? I mean, if they are spending this much to influence 20 people, couldn't they just hire a lobbyist or somebody that can sweet talk them into whatever it is that they are selling?

With such a small group of people being targeted, this just seems like a terribly inefficient way to sell your service.

Just for the execs?

[solevita]

If this was just for top buisness executives, why'd it get viewed by millions in this slash-vertisment? Obviously Unisys is advertising to all of us, albiet through a new and novel means.

Re:Just for the execs?

[SJasperson]

Not quite. This isn't a slashvertisement for Unisys. It's a slashvertisement for their new hip ultra-cool marketing firm (mentioned by name in TFA, but I'm not going to give them more notice here) who hope other corporate sales and marketing drones will say "hey, what a cool idea, I've gotta get me some of that hypermarketing stuff too!"

The next thing you know...

[ScentCone]

... sales execs who've actually done some homework on the dozen or so people in the entire universe likely to meaningfully purchase what they have to sell will be taking these guys on golf outings. I mean, how creepy is that? They'll probably even shake hands!

Re:The next thing you know...

[ScentCone]

What's creepy is the level of concentration of wealth, power and influence

What are you talking about? The guy with something to sell is representing products or services that are worth millions of dollars. He's not selling one single large diamond he inherited from his grandfather, The Duke. What he's selling is produced by hundreds or thousands of employees, all of whom in turn use products and services supplied by other people in the course of doing what they do. They all take home their paychecks and spend it on all sorts of other things.

Then you've got the guy he's selling to. Did you think we're talking about yachts, here, or gold-plated horse trailers? It's big-ticket IT stuff that is used to power entire business operations - upon which (at the scale we're talking about), hundreds or thousands of people will do their jobs and serve, in turn, their customers.

Just because the sales guy has a vested interest in persuading a higher-end decision maker to go one way versus another doesn't mean the decision is made in a vacuum. At that level, the decision maker is answerable to a board of directors, investors, and so on.

Like or not, large employers that do a lot of things for a lot of customers and staff use big-ticket things, like airplanes and server farms. Someone sells them, and someone decides which ones to buy. And it's rarely about just one technical dividing point or another - there's finances, support, legal issues, security reputations, and much more that figure into it. If you don't have the face time and easy relationship with someone who has to weigh all of that, you don't have a chance to convey everything you have to say.

The point of my comment is that this is the oldest story in the book, and just because some newer methods of getting a little attention and face time have evolved, the need for suppliers to woo purchasers hasn't changed one bit.

Salesmen?

[The One and Only]

If your target market is 20 individuals whom you all know by name, isn't it standard to do something like have your salesmen get in touch with them for a face-to-face discussion?

Admittedly, the personal letters are a step in this direction, but the main effect of advertising--on anyone--is simply to remind them the product exists. Convincing them to buy it falls more heavily on other forms of sales and marketing. Then again, sometimes experimental marketing produces unexpected results.

Re:Salesmen?

[gstoddart]

If your target market is 20 individuals whom you all know by name, isn't it standard to do something like have your salesmen get in touch with them for a face-to-face discussion?

If your salesmen can get their foot in the door to get an appointment to see one of such a rarified group of executives. I don't imagine they are people whose schedule is easy to get onto.

They're doing a pitch which says "see, we know exactly what your business needs are, and we have some offerings for you. Why not call us, and we'll tell you more."

I should think a personalized edition of Fortune magazine is going to catch your attention, and probably appeal to your vanity. It might have them calling you asking what you can really do for them, which probably makes the whole sales cycle a lot easier to do.

I suspect if they could close two deals (and probably a single one) from this, they would be sufficiently large to cover the costs of such a specialized marketing campaign. And, if nothing else, the other 18 or 19 have you fresh in their minds.

Cheers

Here's a copy

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Friend,
 
I am the manager of UNISYS at the foreign remittance department.
 
In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of U.S$25M US dollars
(Twenty five Million US dollars) in an account that belongs to one of
our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in November 2002
in a plane crash.
 
Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next if
kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless
somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as
indicated in our banking guidlines and laws but unfortunately we learnt that
all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the
plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
 
It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business
proposal to you so that the money will be released to you as the next
of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement
since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the
bank treasury as unclaimed bill.
 
The banking law and guidline here stipulates that if such money
remained unclaimed after four years, the money will be transfered into the bank
treasury as unclaimed bill. The request of foreigner as next of kin in
this business is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner
and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.
 
I propose that 30% of this money will be for you as my foreign
partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10% will be set aside
for expenses incured during the business and 60% would be for me.
Thereafter I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages
indicated.
 
Therefore, to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as
arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relation or next of kin of the
deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private
telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location
wherein the money will be remitted.
 
Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by e-mail a text of the
application which you'll fill in and send to the bank's email address..
I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is
hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required
arrangements have been made for the transfer.
 
You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter
for further clearifications.
 
Yours faithfully,
. DR HASHEEM HASEEMAPOOTOOLAH

Re:whats next?

[ReidMaynard]

or a real hottie. Hotties can sell anything.

May be good for execs

[otacon]

I think this would annoy or creep out the average person, whereas top level execs would probably love to hear how great they are from billboards or the mock videos.

Insecticide Unisys style

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

What happened to the old fashioned way of sending sales reps with blond bombshell "assistants" to get these 20 bozos and ply them with wine and fine food and golf outings and "business" trips to Cayman islands? Reminds me of a spoof ad for an insecticide:

User Guide to Unisys Mosquito Killer

1. Catch the mosquito and pluck its wings so it does not fly away.

2. Lay the mosquito on its back and tickle its feet.

3. When the moquito opens its mouth to laugh, dump the Unisys Mosquito Killer into its mouth.

Re:Insecticide Unisys style

[Coryoth]

What happened to the old fashioned way of sending sales reps with blond bombshell "assistants" to get these 20 bozos and ply them with wine and fine food and golf outings and "business" trips to Cayman islands?

I think, as someone else pointe out, that the issue is that, with so many companies competing for the attention of these execs and all offering blonde bombshells and trips to the Caymans, managing to get picked to be one of the companies supplying such things and hence getting contact with the execs, is rather hard. To get to that stage you first have to compete for their attention at all - and that's most likely what this campaign is about.

Re:whats next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hotties can almost sell anything, the exception is if they're trying to sell something to an ugly, or fat, woman. Then they tend to get shot down, and usually not based on the merits of their product - but because of jealously.

Selling to another hottie tends to result in a cancellation of the hottie effect. Unless the two hotties are into each other, then a sale may result - and the two may go out on a date later.

Problem with targeting CEOs

[Hoi Polloi]

I hope they didn't spend a lot of money stalking/targeting the CEO of HP. Might be a short campaign.

Try listening to DC-area drive-time radio sometime

[ScentCone]

If you're in radio earshot of the capital beltway, you can always tell when some congressional committee or federal procurement process is closing in on a big contract decision. The local AM radio stations (and NPR sponsorship slots) will fill up with advertisements that can only be meant to influence about half a dozen people.

Wasteful, disrespectful of staff being laid off

[Anonymous Coward]

it seems there's three sorts of people left at Unisys.
1 - People hoping that the company will turn around, and hoping to avoid redundancy
2 - People who are being made redundant
3 - People handing in their notice.

I left band 1 and joined band 3 last Friday. Four colleagues in my team of 9 have been made redundant. The whole team are all chargeable until at least next July on client projects, and are on site. It's not like Bangalore can suddenly go on-site... Another colleague will be handing in his notice as soon as clearance comes through. That leaves 3 people to do the work that clients have paid 9 people to do. Offshoring won't work.

To be pissing away money on this sort of advertising when the company is collapsing is disgusting. The phrase "swansong" comes into mind, as does "desperation".

What's left of the company is going to be struggling to meet existing contractual commitments, and sales are going ballistic to bring in business for Q4. I don't believe they can deliver what they're trying to win.

Re:Try listening to DC-area drive-time radio somet

[Leebert]

If you're in radio earshot of the capital beltway...The local AM radio stations (and NPR sponsorship slots) will fill up with advertisements that can only be meant to influence about half a dozen people.

It worked with me, I love my new littoral combat ship. ;)

Re:Try listening to DC-area drive-time radio somet

[ScentCone]

It worked with me, I love my new littoral combat ship. ;)

Hey, I almost got that! But since I like faster stuff, I opted for a Joint Strike Fighter. But stupid me (early adopter!), I got the one from Boeing instead of the final one from Lockheed. It's like owning a flying Betamax. Oh well, it still has Firewire, and it runs Linux if you don't care about the display drivers or compatibility with cheaper imported air-to-air missle hardware.

Let me run Unisys for day...

[Brandybuck]

Whoever did this ad campaign should be fired, dumped in the gutter, and blackballed from the industry. Why? Because a simple sales call would have accomplished the same thing for a tenth of a percent the cost.

Unisis targeted execs 30 years ago

[bgspence]

Back in the early 70s I worked for Burroughs supporting their largest mainframes. Burroughs later merged with Sperry to form Unisys. We had an account manager who needed to get the attention of the executives in charge of all the regional IBM systems. In those days the safe choice was IBM, but the other smaller vendors each had much better products. They simply couldn't exist in that environment If they weren't superior to IBM. it was well known that "no one got fired for choosing IBM." So, one day he sent each of these executives a baby pacifier to remind them of the security blanket they were hiding behind.

It's targeting more than 20 people

[therblig]

They are targeting more than twenty people. They are targeting twenty people and all the people who are going to pester them because SOME of the targeted advertising will be seen by their superiors. The fact that a company has one of the twenty targets should be enough to generate a buzz that requires attention to be paid to the ads.

It's a clever way of forcing you to pay attention to the sales pitch. I've had salesmen decide the best way to get through to me was to go over my head to my boss. It's too heavy handed and has never worked. This may be a better way of going over someone's head.