Dell has launched its second campaign in the US since the creation of brand-specific agency Enfatico in December 2007. Called “Take your own path,” the effort extends an initiative that first ran in India late last year to the US, Japan, Germany, the UK and China.
The campaign features small-to-medium size business owners sharing their entrepreneurial stories and the challenges of running a small business. Each explains his or her reason for choosing Dell.
“Your brand is not what you say it is, but what your customers say it is,” said Paul-Henri Ferrand, VP of global marketing and strategy for small and medium business at Dell. “We discovered that if we used our customers to help tell our story that it would be impactful.”
The campaign’s goal is to build awareness of Dell’s IT business for small companies, to which the brand has dedicated an entire company, said Nick Moore, creative director at Young & Rubicam Brands (Y&R).
“A lot of people think Dell and think computer, and they don’t know about the IT offering,” he said.
“The idea is to change the image from a PC company to an IT company,” added Ferrand.
The ads are also running in print, online and on billboards. A microsite features each of the small business owners with more in-depth information about their stories. Each includes details about the personal challenges of running a business and how Dell can help. There is also a link back to the Dell Solutions Web site, where a reader can find more about specific technologies.
Enfatico worked on the campaign, but under the Y&R umbrella. WPP folded Enfatico into Y&R in April, in a move the holding company attributed to the global recession. Critics, however, called the creation of Enfatico a misstep for WPP.
Since Enfatico was first introduced almost two years ago, it has only created two campaigns prior to this one. The first was the “I choose my own path” effort in India in 2008 and France in 2009. A US-based campaign, focusing on Dell’s b-to-c business and promoting the Adamo thin laptop, also ran in March.
