H-P Plans to Fuse Printer, PC Units†

Move Would Mark Reversal of Fortune as Once-Laggard PC Division Now Is the Company's Rising Star

Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2009 — Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Mark Hurd, in what would be one of his biggest moves yet to overhaul H-P's inner workings, is finalizing a plan to combine H-P's printer and personal-computer businesses into one unit under current PC chief Todd Bradley, said people familiar with the situation.

Next Big Thing

Hub, January 12, 2009 — Will the Great Recession bring out the best and brightest? A roundtable discussion featuring Michael Mendenhall of Hewlett-Packard, Patia McGrath of General Electric, John Fish of AstraZeneca and Patrick Meyer of Now Inc.

Samsung: Rethinking the Printer Business

Samsung's bet that eye-catching design, and a partnership with Apple, would boost its share of the printer market is paying off

BusinessWeek, January 5, 2009 — In September 2007, Apple (AAPL) upstaged rival electronics retailers with a new product available only at its 180 stores. Billed as the world's smallest laser printer, the SCX-4500 offered all the must-have features of an Apple blockbuster: sleek good looks, buttonless touch controls, and easy set-up. The logo on the front, though, wasn't Apple's. It belonged to Samsung Electronics—one of the biggest suppliers of flat-panel televisions, cellular phones, and refrigerators in retailing—which created the stunning, piano-black printer. Intent on toppling industry giant Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), the South Korean consumer electronics giant spent three years working on its first designer printer before teaming up with Apple for its introduction.

FedEx Whites-Out the Kinko's Name

Poor customer service and fast-changing technology are still problems. Can the delivery giant redeem its troubled copy-chain unit by rebranding?

BusinessWeek, December 18, 2008 — Kinko's is not what it once was, and many customers don't like that a bit.

"They are chronically understaffed and overpriced," Pamela Haber, a Los Angeles event planner, says of the printing giant. "I've done enlargements—I had to get behind the counter to show them what to do."

Gerald Bose, a Sewell (N.J.) management consultant, complains: "You go in there now, the average person, you're not sure what the place is. The first thing you see is the photo kiosk. You can mail stuff. There's the color copier. Way over in the far corner, computers [for word processing and other tasks]. They are getting away from their knitting."

A Plan for Spanning Silos†

No Need to Blow Them Up, but CMOs Must Foster Communication and Cooperation

Advertising Age, November 10, 2008 — Autonomous silos defined by products, countries or functions, often operating in isolation if not in competition with each other, are no longer a viable option. They can be monumentally inefficient, limit the creation of silo-spanning offerings, lead to wasteful and non-optimal resource allocation, be barriers to marketing that has scale, and create brands that are inconsistent and confused both internally and externally. In tough economic times, such inefficiencies and barriers can mean the difference between business success and disappointing marketing performance, or even failure.

However, that does not mean the answer is to blow them up, or even that the goal of the organization should be to centralize or standardize. Rather, silo-driven problems... continue reading

Survey: Wal-Mart Among Best 'Value' Brands†

YouGovPolimetrix places AIG at bottom of insurance heap

Adweek, November 4, 2008 — A recent survey by YouGovPolimetrix revealed that the slumping economy is having a significant impact on how consumers perceive brand value. Budget brands like Wal-Mart and Old Navy were ranked highest by consumers, while more upscale brands and financial services firms ranked lowest, reflecting a loss of consumer confidence.

Dell Bets Splashy Design Will Sell Its New Laptops

Dell Design Chief Ed Boyd is transforming those once-stodgy PCs with art and color. Can made-to-order laptops revitalize the computer maker?

BusinessWeek, October 30, 2008 — Ed Boyd, one of Dell's most unusual hires in recent years, is an industrial designer who used to dream up new sunglasses and shoes for Nike (NKE). Now the 43-year-old is trying to make design an integral part of Dell, the personal computer maker long known for cranking out boring gray boxes. "

PC makers move closer to a post-Windows world

CNNMoney.com, October 29, 2008 — In January, Hewlett-Packard will introduce a glossy black mini-laptop at retail for a mere $379. When it does, it will become the first major computer maker this decade (besides Apple, of course) to push a non-Windows PC in stores.

Kevin Frost, general manager of consumer notebooks at HP, was quick to point out that HP’s embrace of Linux shouldn’t be interpreted as a slap at Microsoft; he said he expects the “vast majority” of HP’s mini laptop sales to be the Windows version. “But we frankly view the mini category as one where we have the opportunity to put the focus on the HP brand, not the processor and not the operating system.”

CMOs Annoyed by Agencies, Ad Networks†

HP, Charles Schwab Mull Going Direct to Media Companies; Verizon Takes Online Partners to Task

Advertising Age, October 20, 2008 — Agencies and ad networks came in for some rough treatment at a CMO roundtable during the Association of National Advertisers' annual conference on Saturday as executives vented their dissatisfaction with agency models and ad-network performance.

The chief marketing officers of Hewlett-Packard and Charles Schwab openly mulled the attractiveness of bypassing agencies to work directly with media companies and other experiments as they look to fix an agency model they see as broken.

How to Build Brands in Digital Age†

Book Excerpt: As Marketers Deal With Fragmentation, the Idea Should Drive the Media, Not the Other Way Around

Advertising Age, October 20, 2008 — We are absolutely awash in news and information.... This wash of messages is due, in good part, to the increase in channels of communication, mostly in digital communication. The internet and all manner of things digital have made it almost impossible to escape what's going on in the world, for better or for worse. This has created a host of challenges and opportunities for CMOs and everyone else responsible for the care and feeding of brands. How do you cut through the clutter? How do you take advantage of digital tools and tactics to learn more about consumers and deliver better, more-relevant brand experiences?

This article, an excerpt from a book called "BrandDigital," is about the way marketers built brands in the pre-digital world compared with the... continue reading