Repositioning Companies

Both IBM and Xerox are iconic companies with enduring brands built over their 100+ year histories. As markets changed, both companies rapidly evolved their business models through acquisitions and innovation. Brand perception is much harder to change but provocative work can move the needle.

IBM: On the brink of the 2008 financial crisis, IBM launched one of the most successful enterprise re-positioning efforts: Smarter Planet. Smarter Planet was ground-breaking on many levels: it provided a hopeful perspective on the possibilities of an interconnected world during a time of despair, initiated IBM’s shift towards becoming a data, analytics and cloud services company, and it featured IBM’ers as the heroes making the world work better. As the Corporate Marketing leader during this period, I was one of the architects of the Smarter Planet platform and directed creative development and deployment globally, across 80+ countries and among dozens of agency partners.

As part of our Effie’s submission in 2009, this provides an overview of the entire strategy and roll-out.

Below are just a few examples of the hundreds of assets produced between 2008 – 2014

The planet is becoming smarter... Intelligence is being infused into systems that enable services to be delivered.

— Sam Palmisano

Recognition

Smarter Planet was one of the most awarded enterprise campaigns of all time.  This is a summary of its recognition over its tenure from 2008 – 2013.

Cannes Lions: 33
Effies: 32
One Show: 48
D&AD: 23, including the Black Pencil for most-awarded brand.
AICP: 6, including the Most Next Award
Clios: 12
London International Awards: 18
Webbys: 13
ADC: 2
Ted Ads Worth Spreading: 1
CA: 4
FWA: 2
Guinness World Records: 1

XEROX: The Xerox brand has long been synonymous with document management and printing but by the 2010’s, this legacy business was less than 50% of revenue, the balance coming from its business services operation. It’s brand was stuck in the past. And Xerox was more than just a document and business services company. At its core, Xerox had always been focused on improving workflow and this became the cornerstone of an effort to re-position Xerox towards a more compelling and interesting enterprise value proposition. “Work Can Work Better” was launched in 2015 portraying Xerox as a business partner who drives real productivity from technology and work processes. It also showcased Xerox’s business services capabilities with a range of humorous and memorable vignettes.

Xerox: Work Can Work Better

Recognition

Best B2B Online campaign 2016 IAC awards

Separating Companies

In 2016, the Xerox Board decide to spin-off it’s $6B business process outsourcing, services unit.  That year would be spent  managing the existing business while preparing two new organizations for new futures as a separate organizations. 

Educating Employees

Extensive internal communication was vital for educating and enrolling the 150,000+ employees impacted by the separation.

Post Separation, Xerox was now re-focused on its heritage, document management positioning.  We needed a way to re-introduce a new, streamlined and contemporary Xerox.  What better way than to create a remake of the iconic 1970’s “Monk” commercial  But updated for today’s global, connected world.

As Xerox Services transitioned to Conduent, we modified our base campaign spots to signal the upcoming change.

Launching a Company

Synopsis of the Separation, Formation and Launch

Xerox’s BPO spin-off was a essentially a $6B start-up.   It was a global operating division, but it was not a company.   It needed an identity, culture, systems and processes.   Once we’d settled on the company’s name – Conduent – my team and I set on the important work of breathing life into the new organization. 

Name and Logo

Creating a team, strategy and culture

IPO

Conduent was the first IPO of 2017

Advertising

Television Launch Spot

Employee Engagement

Internal Employee Launch, “Selfie” Video

ID/Branding

Founder’s Day

Concurrent with the IPO, employees held “Founder’s Day” celebrations at site locations around the world.   Branded merchandise was shipped to every employee.

Ribbon-cutting of Conduent Headquarters in Florham Park, NJ. Sen. Cory Booker did the honors.

Creating New Categories

IBM Watson: IBM Research had set upon a “grand challenge” of developing a computing system that could compete (and win) the GOAT of game-shows: Jeopardy. While researchers and computer scientists finalized the system, my team and I were focused on bringing this challenge to life during three nights of gameshow history. From commercial negotiations, to creative, set-design and promotion — we made Watson a household name and forever memorialized one of the greatest man vs. machine competitions in history. At the same time, we were opening up the massive category of big data, analytics and cognitive computing.

IBM Smarter Cities: Cities are systems of systems. The digitization of municipal services creates the opportunity for greater connectivity, interoperability and service efficiencies. The result are cities that are safer, more efficient and create a better quality of life for their residents. IBM saw the opportunity to convene city leaders around the world to create a new market category — the smarter city. My team set to work to foster this global conversation and position IBM as the leading innovator in this new market segment.

Breakthrough Social /“World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film”

During my time at IBM, I challenged our Ogilvy Creatives to spend a week in IBM Research seeking the coolest examples of tech breakthroughs  with potential to interest a general audience.   The creative brief was simple: “generate brand love” across all stakeholders  – clients, employees, investors and the world at large.

The team surfaced a range of discoveries, from anatomically correct 3D renderings of human organs useful for clinical trials to a listening device that could hear sounds light-years away in space.  They also discovered a group of IBM Researchers who where manipulating atoms using a scanning tunneling microscope to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules (two atoms stacked on top of each other).  The idea was to make a movie using this process.  We loved it.

The result was “A Boy and His Atom”.  A stop-motion, nano-animation awarded the”World’s Smallest Film” by the Guinness Book of World Records.    It received over a million views in its first 24 hours and remains one of the most successful examples of B2B / B2C cross-cover content ever produced.  It currently has been viewed over 12M times.

Recognition:

Cannes Lions: Gold, Silver, 2 Bronze
One Show: Gold, 2 Silver, Bronze and Merit
D&AD: In-book
AICP: Most Next Award
Clios: Gold and Bronze
London International Awards: 2 Silver and 2 Finalist
Webby: Honoree
ADC: Sliver
Effies: Gold, Silver, Bronze
Ted Ads Worth Spreading
A-List Hollywood Awards: 2 Bronze
Guinness World Record