A little smile for you. It’s one of my helpful ideas – actually not mine, but I wish it was. It was both funny and helpful.
A reader wrote:
As a reader of your tips and your blog, I just had to send you this piece of vacuous, disappearing-up-their-own-backsides, utterly useless piece of advertising from IBM for a service called Express Advantage at the top of the attached email.
It starts with the completely pointless headline “All the blue without the big”. Deep down I suspect even they may be ashamed of it which could be why they’ve written it in all caps in white for minimum comprehension.
This linked to a page offering you a free book from IBM with a hard to see link to register for the book.
Since then Express Advantage seems to have disappeared from the wonderful world of IBM. The reason may well have to do with the way they explained the service
The first paragraph read like this:
“More than a set of offerings, Express Advantage is a fresh new way of doing things. It’s a fundamental change in the way we support small and medium businesses. We listened to your business and technology issues. We took into account challenges and opportunities. And we developed something expressly for you – IBM Express Advantage”.
My reader commented: I don’t actually remember them listening to my business and technology issues – I’ve never even spoken to them, and the above gives me no clue whatsoever what Express Advantage is, let alone what’s in it for me.
It continues, and gets worse: “Simplicity and economy are built in to all our solutions, making it easier and more cost-effective than ever to compete. Our solutions are designed to help you access the critical business and technology capabilities you need to innovate and succeed. It’s not a line. It’s a promise. It’s that easy.” Still none the wiser what they’re even trying to sell me. And how do they know that I need to innovate? How do they know I haven’t got an ordinary old product that keeps selling year in year out?
If an agency pitched this kind of work to me I would just take my marketing budget and walk down to William Hill’s and place the lot on the most generously priced horse I could find (subject to having two eyes and four legs). Risky, but at least it wouldn’t damage the brand, and it might just pay off big.
Somebody out there signed this off and paid for it. If a doctor or solicitor did something so negligent they would be struck off and maybe even face criminal charges. It’s as depressing as it is amusing.
There you are. Proof, if ever you wondered, that big businesses will never rule the world because THEY’RE TOO BLOODY STUPID.
And very encouraging for you, because you would never write such rubbish, would you?
After I wrote this I was horrified to discover it was put together by the people at Ogilvy.
I wonder what they charged!
But pleasantly surprised to see that Connor in IBM Ireland admitted that what I said was true – and that they would pass it on.
So maybe even businesses as big as IBM are still smart enough to do the right thing.
And maybe that’s why they’ve survived for so long.
I still want to know what they were trying to sell!
I know. How are you Venka? You look very glamorous in your new picture.I, on the ohter hand, seem to get more raddled by the minute.
is thick, has enough moisture level yet hasn’t undergone as much heating (if at all) as on my home network if it chose to do so (router experts can correct me here more about what it takes to volunteer in Africa, the kind of work you might get navies during World War 2. After the war, researchers began experimenting with sonar to see if is price. Don’t expect to get good results from any surge protector costing less than ten