IBM Launches Campaign Targeting CMOs

Advertising is getting more and more focused and targets different audiences relevant to companies. IBM is aiming its new campaign set to be launched with two TV ads during the U.S. Open tennis tournament at chief marketing officers. Although there aren’t explicit mentions of CMOs, the topics chosen by the campaign are clearly targeting them. This campaign seems to be following a trend identified by research firm Gartner which found out that in 2017 the CMO will spend more money on information technology than the CIO. IBM thinks that during this year USD148 billion in information technology-related spending was decided on by CMOs or influenced by them one way or another.

“Marketers weren’t big consumers of technology 10 years ago,” declared John Kennedy, VP-corporate marketing at IBM. “Marketing is the latest [area] to emerge with technology as an underpinning to the business. That’s why it makes a lot of sense to reach out to the CMO.”

Marketers haven’t been targeted by IBM’s ads until recently. “Marketing is going to take over operations in a lot of ways. Everyone needs to think a little bit like a marketer, if they’re going to satisfy the customer,” declared Mike Hahn, group creative director at Ogilvy, IBM’s agency. “The person closest to the customer, carrying that flag, is the CMO.”

“Since Big Data is emerging as a prized asset for companies to drive growth and innovation, the corporate marketing function is suddenly emerging as a bigger player in the C-suite,” added John Kennedy. “It’s clear that marketers are increasingly looking for direction on how to interpret the change happening in the function.”

U.S. Open is an important and internationally appreciated sports event, therefore IBM is looking to strike big with the new campaign. I’m actually looking forward to see how this campaign will develop and what other companies will target CMOs.

And while IBM targets CMO’s, they have many Public Relations companies targeting the media and working with them on messaging and PR KPI’s, including Ketchum, Text 100, Diffusion and more.