Message First in Practice: IBM

Message is the heart and soul of brand. Industry experts, agency leaders and leading CEOs know that putting message first is the only approach that delivers the best results for their marketing.

HNW might have codified a unique message first marketing approach, but a huge part of that has been watching how other brands and businesses centre their marketing around a core message. 

Brands like this one.

The Brand: IBM

IBM is one of the world’s largest technology companies, offering a wide range of computer software, computing research services, and cutting-edge supercomputers. For over a century, IBM has led the way in computing technology, becoming one of the world’s most widely known brands. 

The Message: Competence. 

IBM isn’t entering a market, or challenging for dominance. It could be argued that they created the computer technology market. While they’ve ceded territory in the production of home computers and consumer products, they remain one of the most trusted B2B brands in the world. 

That trust hasn’t been manufactured by messaging. It’s been created by a century of doing a good job for clients. Sometimes that job’s comparatively simple – IBM is far from the only company offering cloud-based computing, for example. But often that job is incredibly complex – such as developing the world’s most powerful supercomputers. 

Where other brands use messaging to create a personality – think Apple’s carefully considered ‘think different’ brand mentality – IBM have gradually built their message to reflect one core truth about their company.

You can always trust them to do a good job. 

After looking through a century of IBM ads, we’d summarise this key message in one word:  

“Competence”

Stretching back as far as the 1940s with their “IBM means service” campaign, IBM identified that the people who need their products and services don’t always understand how they work. 

Purchasing a computing machine, electric accounting machine, electronic data processor or any other cutting-edge tech product is essentially an act of faith for any business. 

So instead of blinding the audience with technological specifications that mean nothing to a layperson, IBM has always focused on calm, measured statements about things the reader can understand. We’re good at what we do. You can trust us. You’re safe with us. 

It’s freed the company from the need to engage in technological one-upmanship. Intel may have bragged about their 1.10GHz processor base frequencies, but that messaging was outshone the moment someone invented a processor with a 1.11GHz base frequency.

Instead of chasing bigger numbers, IBM has the freedom to simply state that their products will deliver what you need. 

It all adds up for the customer. Because they can trust IBM implicitly, they’re freed to focus on their jobs. 

In the mind of the customer, purchasing IBM doesn’t carry the threat of mass process overhauls or sweeping changes. Just a newfound confidence in competence that allows them to focus on doing their jobs to the best of their ability. 

Competence that rubs off. 

The Voice: Straight-talking 

Because we’ve never worked with IBM, we haven’t had the benefit of running a tone of voice workshop for them. 

But their tone of voice is incredibly clear and consistent across all of their communications. They’ve always steered clear of jargon, and got straight down to business with a clear, simple explanation of the benefits of IBM.

And always in this case stretches from print ads in the 1930s, up to website copy in the present day.

A calming voice that makes the complex world of business computing simple, and is never side-tracked by bragging about tech specs or anything else a customer neither understands nor values. 

That’s undoubtedly an unadulterated straight-talker. 

The Deployment: A Century of Consistency

IBM is proof that a strong message is timeless, and that message first is an observable truth across the world’s most successful brands.

From 1911, IBM has been identifying the most obvious benefits of their technology and explaining to potential customers that they’re the most trustworthy option.

They aren’t afraid to turn a phrase now and again, as adverts for the IBM Display Writer System of the mid 80s prove. But even a pithy headline is immediately supported by clear, calm benefits.

It hath Math will grab your attention. And it can check your Spelling in 6 different languages will convince you to buy. Because you can trust IBM to not make mistakes. And correct yours.

Now that’s competence. 

That calmness and focus on the relationship between brand and customer lets IBM tune out the noise. Other technology brands have taken aim at IBM (and at each other, think Apple’s PC vs Mac spots of the early 2000s), but IBM has largely risen above the infighting to focus on what’s really important. Your ability to trust them to do a good job. 

And competence as an implied throughline lets IBM make confident statements that other companies would struggle to evidence. Take their Superbowl ad from 2009. When IBM tells you their Watson platform is trusted by doctors and scientists, you believe them. And you trust them when they say it’ll simplify your taxes.

And their 2022 “no drama business” campaign doesn’t even need to show a product in action. When IBM tells you there’s no drama using their technology, you believe them. A century of consistent competency acts as credit in the bank. 

With features scrolling past too quickly to be the focus of your attention, and a follow-up ad that explains IBM products are so resilient they’re “almost dull,” the message comes through loud and clear. You don’t need to know what all this technology is. You can simply trust that it does the job and does it well. Your own lack of knowledge is no longer a barrier to the sale.

You don’t need to be an expert to buy IBM, because IBM has all the expertise you need. 

That grounding in competence, in straight-forward thought and messaging is key to every advertising campaign IBM has run since 1911 and their original “think” concept. Even today in 2023, they don’t have a flashy, pithy strapline. Instead they focus on what matters in the B2B marketplace. 

Real world applications.

THE KEY MESSAGE:  Competence

Primary strapline:     Putting technology to work in the real world

Company mission: To help clients solve the most pressing business problems

Supporting messages: THINK
More power to the person
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM
We are in the no drama business

For a century, IBM’s key messaging has guided all of their interactions with customers, competitors and the world at large. That can only happen because it’s a faithful, honest reflection of how the company sees itself – and how the world sees the company.

By understanding what they bring to every single business interaction, IBM hasn’t just pioneered workplace technology. They’ve also, in a way, pioneered the message first approach to marketing.  

Putting your message first is so clear. So effective. So what are you waiting for?