By Rik Turner
Where IBM leads Electronic Data Systems Corp looks sure to follow. Like the irritating little brother who insists on copying his older sibling’s every move, IT services runner-up EDS has launched its first global advertising campaign (see separate story) in the hope of staking its claim on the booming e-business market that IBM has made its own.
The company says that the $50m campaign, which will use TV, print and the internet under the tagline EDS Solved will help CEOs in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America understand how EDS can help their businesses get wired. But with TV ads featuring internet-naive CEOs, and supply chain problems illustrated with diner food, EDS could be in danger of putting off customers rather than attracting them.
Worse still is EDS’ redesigned web site. Banners such as e-anxiety and e-denial, designed to appeal to technology anxious CEOs, seem better to describe EDS’ own tentativeness to enter the internet age. This reluctance has already cost it dear in terms of lost market share to its great rival IBM Global Services.
Even if the ads are better than they sound, EDS may still have problems getting its message over. Unlike IBM and Compaq, both of which have recently undertaken high profile ad campaigns, EDS is hardly a household name.
Ads will go out on CNN International from this week and on selected European networks from the end of September. Paper ads are set to appear in influential publications such as the Wall Street Journal Europe and The Economist.
