HP Gets Enterprising with Ads

HP kicked off its biggest ever enterprise advertising campaign Monday to urge corporate customers to use its technology to manage change.

The brand campaign comes as the Palo Alto, Calif.-based tech company releases an array of new systems, software and services aimed at enterprise customers. The company says the new offerings are all designed to help businesses use standardization to better deal with change.

“We asked hundreds of CIOs and IT executives what keeps them awake at night. The universal response was ‘change,'” said Allison Johnson, senior vice president of global brand and communications at HP.

That’s why the new campaign is dubbed “change+hp,” following in the footsteps of the company’s earlier “you+hp” consumer campaign. HP worked with San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein and Partners to develop both efforts, which are part of its larger overarching brand campaign, “customers+hp = everything is possible.” The company plans to spend $300 million in all on its “+hp”-themed branding efforts.

Change+hp will use online, print, television and outdoor media to get its message across. Print creative began running Monday, with a 16-page insert that appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Television, online and outdoor elements debut in the U.S. in March and will roll out to 17 additional countries in April.

Customer case studies — featuring Amazon.com, FedEx, General Motors, Sabre Holdings, the U.S. Postal Service and Sprint, among others — show testimonials from executives about how they are using HP technology.

Online, these testimonials take the form of Flash ads. One shows a conveyor belt moving along U.S. Postal Service packages. The copy reads: “HP helps the U.S. Postal Service make sure when demand goes up, their IT delivers. Solutions for the adaptive enterprise. Make change work for you.” Mousing over the boxes causes them to spin around.

The company has also launched a Flash micro-site at hp.com/adapt which links to white papers, case studies, and “the four principles of the adaptive enterprise.”