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优利系统众里寻“她”

级别: 管理员
Unisys Pitch Finds the I in Niche Key Executives Are Targeted

Around 20 high-ranking executives at corporations such as Subaru of America, DHL, Citigroup and Northwest Airlines will get a surprise when Fortune magazine arrives on their desks this week. Each will find his or her own face gracing the cover.

The covers are one-of-a-kind mock-ups wrapping the actual Fortune edition, part of an advertising play conducted by information-technology company Unisys that brings new meaning to the idea of niche marketing. Unisys is sending the magazines to get the attention of executives -- mostly chief information officers -- responsible for making buying decisions about their companies' technology products and services. In other words, the people Unisys most wants to influence.

SLICING IT THIN



See more on Unisys's new effort and on its media spending.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.

Advertising has long been a game of pitches to the masses, an approach still employed by makers of soda and fast food, among many others. Increasingly however, marketers who sell to other businesses are recognizing that aiming their advertising more narrowly can be more effective at driving sales.

Unisys once relied mainly on magazine advertising, but it left people with a "vanilla" impression of the company, says Ellyn Raftery, its vice president and general manager of world-wide marketing and communications. While Unisys bought print ads in Fortune as part of the deal to secure the mock covers, the company now places more emphasis on ads that "intercept" its target executives at "a place and time when they are most receptive," she says.

"We're not trying to have grandma at home understand who we are and what we do. We're not even trying to have every business executive understand who we are and what we do. It's a very narrow set of executives that we really want to reach," Ms. Raftery says. After being elevated to the top marketing job last year, she quickly set about overhauling Unisys's marketing strategy. Among other moves, she replaced Unisys's ad agency with independent StrawberryFrog, which devised this effort.

Some on Madison Avenue call this technique "hypertargeting," says Andy Von Kennel, a vice president and account director at Omnicom Group's PHD, which handles Unisys's media buying. Putting it into practice isn't easy. "You have to get that much more granular," he says.

To guarantee the executives in question would see the billboards erected near their offices, field teams from PHD tried to figure out how they might commute to work. In some cases, such as around Citigroup's building on Lexington Avenue in New York, PHD staffers even scoped out local coffee shops and eateries to see where an executive might grab a sandwich, Mr. Von Kennel says.

Unisys expects others to see some of these outdoor ads, of course, but is making sure to place them in areas where it does lots of business. The company has purchased outdoor advertising near the Pentagon, for example, even wrapping trains in ads on two Washington-area Metro routes that stop at the Pentagon City station -- the better to attract executives when they commute.

Unisys is also using the Web to market to a broader group, with ads on Web sites for such publications as CIO Today and CIO Insight, Mr. Von Kennel says. Ads also will appear on pages of the New York Times Web site, but only when those pages are called up by people who have registered on the site as senior corporate executives, he says.
优利系统众里寻“她”

当本周收到《财富》杂志时,斯巴鲁汽车(美国)公司(Subaru of America)、敦豪(DHL)、花旗集团(Citigroup)和西北航空(Northwest Airlines)的20来位高级管理人士可要大吃一惊了,他们都将发现自己成了《财富》杂志的封面人物。

这些人见到的杂志封皮实际上是信息技术公司优利系统(Unisys)仿造的,这是该公司为开拓细分市场而想出的广告新招。优利系统通过发送此类杂志来吸引一些管理人士的注意──特别是首席信息长──购买优利系统高科技产品和服务的决定就由他们作出。换句话说,这些人才是优利系统最想打动的人。

翻开仿造的《财富》杂志封面,这些管理人士将发现优利系统的一位高级经理专门针对他(她)撰写的一封信──阐述他们所在行业面临的挑战。仿造的《财富》杂志封面上还列有个性化网址,这些管理人士登录进去将发现提到他们名字及职业成就的虚构电视新闻。为了更好地传达信息,优利系统还将在这些管理人士的办公楼附近摆出广告牌和户外标牌──不过不会挂出这些首席信息长的肖像。部分广告甚至将出现在写字楼电梯间的录像屏幕中。

长期以来广告一直是吸引大众的理想方式,也是饮料、快餐以及其他很多企业推广产品时必不可少的途径。不过向企业出售产品的一些制造商逐渐发现,将广告定位于一小部分重要人物可以收效更佳,它更有助于推动企业销售额的增长。

优利系统负责全球营销及沟通的副总裁兼总经理埃利恩?拉夫特里(Ellyn Raftery)表示,优利系统曾经大量依赖杂志广告,不过实际效果却并不显着。虽然优利系统为了获准仿造《财富》杂志封面也购买了该杂志的平面广告版面,但该公司目前的广告战略重点却是,在目标受众最容易接受的时间和地点“截住”他们。

“我们并不想费尽心机让家里的老奶奶都知道我们是谁,我们在做什么。我们甚至不指望每位企业管理人都了解这些。我们真正想接触的范围非常窄,”拉夫特里说。拉夫特里在去年被提升为营销负责人后很快着手改革优利系统的营销战略。她采取了一系列举措,其中就包括将优利系统的广告代理商换成独立公司StrawberryFrog,也正是StrawberryFrog帮助优利系统设计了上述广告方案。

Omnicom Group旗下PHD的副总裁兼会计经理安迪?冯?肯内尔(Andy Von Kennel)说,麦迪逊大道的一些人将这种技巧称为“精确定位广告”。“但实施起来并不简单。你必须细致入微。”

为了保证作为目标受体的这些企业管理人士能够看到悬挂在写字楼附近的广告牌,PHD的实地考察人员开始调查他们通勤上班的情况。冯?肯内尔说,在花旗集团位于纽约莱星顿大道的写字楼附近,为观察一位管理人士在哪里买三明治,PHD的工作人员甚至在当地的咖啡店和餐馆埋伏起来。

优利系统当然知道即便这些企业管理人士看不到它的户外广告,也会有其他人看到,不过该公司还是决定将广告牌放在更有用的地方。比如它买下了五角大楼附近的户外广告权,还在两条华盛顿地区的Metro地铁线上用广告包装了列车,这两条线路在Pentagon City这一站都会停靠──如果这些企业管理人士乘地铁上下班的话,这里是他们的必经之地。

优利系统还借助网络向更广泛的人群推销自己的产品,冯?肯内尔说,该公司在CIO Today和CIO Insight等出版物的网站上分别登载了广告。他说,《纽约时报》的网页上也有优利系统的广告,但只在注册为用户的高级经理们有权翻看的页面出现。

Brian Steinberg
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