Coolbrands: Anouk, Maarten and David in discussion with Michael Mendenhall and Jeroen Coenen

The digital age has created a

digital marketplace. How a brand
is perceived and communicated these
days is radically different from the past.
The creation of online communities, blogs, CEO Mark Hurd | Number of employees 320,000 | Company
turnover FY08 $118.4b | Brand values Passion for customers;
podcasts, websites – you get the picture – Trust and respect; Achievement and contribution; Results
through teamwork; Speed and agility; Meaningful innovation;
means consumers have taken control of what Uncompromising; Integrity | Brand promise We can help you
do that | Primary advertising media HP uses all media
a brand means and stands for. Furthermore,
the bottleneck between demand and supply is
disappearing as technology becomes available
to everyone. Catching up with HP Senior Vice
President and Chief Marketing Officer Michael
Mendenhall in the HP Halo Room - a room
using high-definition cameras and screens
to create a realistic online conference
room - we got a rundown on what the
future of branding (and everything
else) looks like.

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A market of one
A growing number of channels and platforms exist for customers
to interact with a brand. The take-up of technology is also at an all
time high. All of which means the ways customers are choosing to
engage – or not engage – with a brand are changing.
Michael: “Technology is allowing customers to fragment and choose
how and where they want to engage with brands and their products
and services. They are changing their behaviours very fast and a lot
of companies are unprepared for these new channels.”
The digital consumer has also been born, producing a new
generation gap within the marketplace. Whereas most people still
tend to want to experience, see and touch a product before buying
it, the new digital generation has no hang-ups buying online. “It is
not that they will disregard conventional channels, but they are also
very comfortable with purchasing products and services online”,
Michael adds.
All of which means mass marketing is changing.The new marketplace
is a market of one. “The landscape is changing”, Michael explains. “It
is critical we understand how consumers are engaging with us and
what their patterns and behaviours look like so we can be more
relevant.”
Honour the past, don’t be a slave to it
Producing products, solutions and technology relevant to real life
has always been a cornerstone of the HP brand. Trusted, Genuine and
Inspired continue to be key company characteristics. HP has been
operating for more than 70 years and has always been associated
with innovation, inventiveness and intellectual capital.
Honouring the brand’s legacy, instead of being a slave to it, is
essential to staying relevant. HP draws inspiration from its rich past
of innovation, not its business practices of yesteryear. It’s constantly
evolving, but always honours its past. “The important thing with
heritage is that is doesn’t strangle your brand”, says Michael. “It’s
about pulling the insights from the heritage and from the brand’s
founders and using these to the brand’s advantage. It’s not about
living in the past, it’s about pulling the innovative spirit forward and
showcasing it. The pitfall in some companies is that they confuse
operating principles, the way the company worked when it was
founded, with heritage. We are in a different time now than when the
company was created so it’s the spirit that must be taken forward.”
Thinking outside-in
In creating a new branding drive for HP, Michael changed the game
for drafting a branding blueprint. Many companies tend to ask and
define themselves what the brand is: an inside-out approach. Michael
prefers an outside-in formula, letting the people who buy and use
the brand define what it is. “Many companies, when doing research
about their brand, build what they believe is the hypothesis for the
brand promise: its attributes, and how people think and feel about
the brand”, he explains. “But a brand is not just about the consumers,
it is about the brand’s reputation and what people think of it.”
HP spent more than three months talking to stakeholders such as community
leaders, NGOs, government leaders, financial/industry analysts, customer
segments, employees, suppliers and so on. In doing so, the company built up
a picture of how these groups define the brand, what the most important
brand attributes are, and how they rank these attributes. The company
then identified common trends and correlations and based its branding
strategy on this data. It also identified the differences between key consumer
groups: differences which will be taken into account when mapping out a
communications strategy targeting these individual groups.
Michael:“This enabled HP to build a strategy to improve the reputation of the
brand while mitigating any risks to the brand itself. The brand is the promise
to the consumer, but it also has a value. That’s what you’re building and
protecting against: the intangible value.”
HP also identified key ‘unstructured influencers’ – people who play a key
role in forming opinion about HP but are not part of the traditional media
or advertising structures. This saw HP target technology publishers, bloggers,
online tech review sites and social networking spaces such as Facebook,
MySpace and LinkedIn. “If companies believe they own their brands, they are
mistaken”, ads Michael.“Part of it is now owned by the general public because
technology has empowered consumers to take charge of that relationship.
They are the gatekeepers. We are now living in a digital world so it is important
to use these unstructured influencers to the company’s advantage. It’s how
you engage and monitor these conversations that is important to the health
of your company and its brand.”
HP Labs
HP’s dedication to innovation is evidenced by its string of 23 HP Labs. These
research houses are charged with addressing the most important challenges
and opportunities facing the IT industry over the next decade. Research is
focused on five broad themes: information explosion, dynamic cloud services,
content transformation, intelligent infrastructure and sustainability. While
many companies have research divisions, HP’s commitment to leveraging its
broad technology portfolio – together with the knowledge of its extensive
pool of customers and partners – to drive high-impact research sets it apart
from the rest.
Booting up the HP family
Creating a clear and consistent branding message is of crucial importance
for a company as diverse as HP. As such, the branding story plays a key role
in training any new employee at the company. As well as an induction
training programme, HP has also set up a dedicated website ensuring
employees are always engaged with the brand. Michael: “This online tool
has become the glue between the employees and the brand. This is critical
when you have such a diverse workforce in such a diverse number of
locations as HP has.”
As for the future, Michael says consumers expect communications to be more
personalised. “Brands need to be at the centre of customers’ consideration
and to do that brands need to connect emotionally with their customers”, he
explains. How companies engage with their customers online will continue to
evolve and deepen. Keeping a global brand relevant to individual consumers
spread throughout the world also looms as a challenge. Whatever the future
brings, rest assured HP will be part of the solution.