Dell is full of it.

hope? If it's based on hope, get out.

 

Might interest some....I cut and pasted an exerpt below as well as link to the full article.


Dell's Lost Vision
by Gary North


http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north159.html

WE CAN SEE DELL’S PROBLEM IN DELL’S TV ADS

When Gateway ran that ad last fall with some helpless schmoe on the phone, caught between the hardware guy ("It’s a software problem") and the software lady ("It’s a hardware problem"), it was clear to me that Gateway’s ad agency had put Dell in its cross-hairs.

Take a close look at Dell’s latest TV ads. They are multimillion-dollar revelations of the extent of Michael Dell’s confused vision. They verify what Dell’s stock price indicates. The Christmas ad featured a Dell salesman in his very early 20’s. He was on the phone. He was talking to his father (or some adult), who is in a computer store. Gateway? Best Buy? Circuit City? The guy in the store is being pressured to buy . . . by a robot. The robot was handing him a candy cane. Message: "Buy from some kid on the phone. Don’t go into a local computer store, where you will be pressured by a salesman no smarter than a robot."

Here is another Dell ad. A small high school group comes to visit a Dell office. (Oh, boy! A field trip! A significant learning experience! We knew better by age 12, but Dell’s ad agency thinks this is powerful imagery of an educational experience.) The students see a guy not much older than they are. He sells computers on the phone. Wow, are they impressed! Even the tattle-tale girl, who represents all of the tattle-tale girls who ever ratted on us, is impressed by the end of the ad. With her "testimonial," I’m supposed to buy from Dell.

What on earth was the ad agency thinking of, and why did Dell approve the ad?

It never occurs to Michael Dell to locate a dozen business owners who have bought from Dell for 15 years and who have built their businesses with Dell computers. He then tells the ad agency to send in a camera crew and get testimonials. Then Dell runs one testimonial ad each month. Instead, Dell paid an ad agency to pay an actress to play a tattle-tale girl who finally accepts the fact that buying from Dell is OK. We’ll believe her!

Michael Dell has grown so rich that he has forgotten how he got rich. He didn’t get rich because of what he learned on a high school field trip.

These ads are not the worst ads I have ever seen. But they are the most revealing ads I have ever seen. They reveal a very rich man who has lost all sense of what his once-innovative company is all about in today’s market. They reveal a founder in search of a new USP for his company. Here is what those ads tell me:

Dell is targeting first-time home-computer buyers, not businesses.

Dell is trying to persuade viewers that talking on the phone to 22-year-old boys – all Anglos – is a better way to shop than going into a store.

Dell is trying to persuade viewers that at a store, they will get pressured by uncaring, ignorant salesmen.

First, it’s the wrong audience. There is no money in first-time home-computer buyers. Even if there were, they still prefer to buy at a local store where they can talk to 22-year-old Anglos who look them in the eye.

 

I couldn't disagree more with that article. Dell is making several great points. You get a rep who will spec out your pc to do what you want to do, not one sitting on a shelf in a store. Most pc's are bought by kids or the purchase is driven by what kids want, so Dell is making a strong effort to identify with those kids. Guess what, they tend to be affluent suburban kids, not rappers. That "dude, you're getting a dell" guy is annoying, but everyone knows that tag line. Kids are brand conscious, and Dell is positioning itself as the brand of choice.

I'm no ad guy and have no idea if this will work, but I see smart marketing, not an out of touch Mike Dell.