Steve Hayden wrote Apple's award winning 1984. Can he work the same magic for IBM?
__It was Hayden who wrote the famous 1984 ad introducing Macintosh - it was cited this year by Advertising Age as the greatest commercial of all time.
After evangelizing for Apple and debunking IBM, DOS, and Windows, Hayden has finally jumped ship to be president of worldwide brand services for IBM at Ogilvy & Mather in New York. Ogilvy won the US$500 million account a year ago when new management at IBM summarily dumped nearly 80 ad agencies around the world in the biggest account move in the history of advertising. The agency then lured Hayden to mastermind a new unified image for IBM. Hayden spoke with writer Bradley Johnson in a series of interviews conducted in Hayden's office, home, and the back seat of a taxi.__
Wired: You helped produce for Apple the best and most consistent brand-building advertising in the computer industry. Yet Apple remains an industry also-ran. Why? Some people could use that example to argue that advertising doesn't matter. Hayden:
Advertising does matter, because when people don't have time to sort through pages of spec sheets, when they're looking for ever-more compressed data, they'll turn to brands they trust. Technology is not like packaged-goods marketing, in which you can pour a certain amount of advertising in one end and expect a certain amount of sales to come out the other. There are many more factors that affect sales - availability, compatibility, service and support, and dealing with the sales channel. If the sales staff is getting spiffed to promote computers made in Bangladesh, no amount of 1984 commercials will change what the salesman has to say.
Wired: What has advertising done for Apple? Hayden:
Good advertising sells products and sustains brands, and it's done that for Apple. But good advertising can't make a product work better, and advertising alone is definitely not enough to overcome the problems of a product like the Apple Lisa, which was way overpriced to begin with. If you look at the history of Apple in context, you'll see the company missed a number of very significant opportunities that are almost impossible to recover from, such as the decision in the '80s to maintain premium pricing and not license Mac OS software to clone makers. Take it from today's perspective: if someone were going to buy Apple, what would they be buying? It would probably be brand first and technology second. So, Apple has great brand strength. But meanwhile, IBM is lightening up its image. IBM doesn't have to prove its business and technology side; IBM has to prove its humanity, and I think they're beginning to do it.
Wired: Let's look at IBM before Ogilvy. IBM's United States PC market share fell in five of the six years that its former agency, Lintas, had the business. How much do you blame Lintas for IBM's fall? Hayden:
IBM should sue Lintas for brand rape. The low point was where they were singing, "How're you gonna do it? PS/2 it!" That was just a shocking outrage for a great brand. It's almost like they took somebody off of selling frozen peas, put them on the IBM account, and said, "Go do a jingle." IBM had hardware problems, channel problems, and organizational problems during those bad years, but the advertising seemed to be contributing to their problems.
Wired: IBM still faces problems - getting PowerPC machines out the door, getting software for OS/2, you name it. What are the odds that IBM will be able to restore its image as the industry leader? Hayden:
100 percent.
Wired: I don't believe you. Hayden:
Well, I bet my career on it. So, why not? Besides, I can't lie. I'm in advertising.
Wired: I see. What's your advice about online advertising? Hayden:
Every guru of interactive advertising is saying that image is meaningless and that information is everything. I totally disagree. The masters of the info age have basically browbeaten advertisers into the idea that hype doesn't work on the Net, that information is all people want, and that if you attempt to hype people, you'll lose them and they'll hate you forever. Advertisers have responded with a certain touching purity, but the outcome is they've driven the life and reward out of any communications that might have been made. It's not fun. The best interactive advertising works by attraction rather than intrusion. You have to be interested in a brand already or shopping for a product before interactive advertising can attract your attention. The way that advertising has traditionally operated is by intrusion. If you are hit with an image on a street corner or while watching TV, you're hit with some new information that might stimulate you to explore further. If I just dump a bunch of data sheets and product catalogs into a Web site, people have to snurfle around looking for details.
Wired: What's the worst interactive advertisement you've seen? Hayden:
Almost anything by the car companies. None of it is really terrible; it's just passive. To attract me to a Lexus location and then not give me that feeling of luxury a Lexus is supposed to have isn't good brand stewardship. If I spend 10 minutes of computer time downloading a picture of this week's magazine ad, I'm not terribly gratified. On the Net, I'm a special customer shopping in a special way for a Lexus, and the company hasn't given me any added value. Interactive advertising can be made more inviting if you create intriguing environments for people to visit. Advertisers need to figure out how to create their own worlds, where people understand that being part of this religion, this brand, is a powerful and important thing. What we're talking about here is building cathedrals. In the Middle Ages, the cathedral was a communication about religion, the life after. It was this node between you and Heaven, so people didn't have to read the Bible to get what the cathedral was about. That's what we're talking about in creating online worlds.
Wired: What are some of the best interactive ads? Hayden:
The Fox promo kits on America Online, with the movie stuff. The one I liked the best was for Speed. It had fun and prizes. You downloaded it and got a videogame, you were involved with the movie, you answered a series of questions, and you could win T-shirts or free tickets. Some of the new MTV stuff is fun. And the Absolut Museum is wonderful. It's kind of an archive; you can explore great art from the Absolut campaign, which is pretty cool. Most people don't refer to the museum as advertising, and in a traditional sense, it's not. It's art. It's entertainment. But if people want to see your work - or will even pay to see it - then that's great advertising.
