Release of new HP products:-

If you have a television, you've seen the snarky Apple ads that personify Microsoft as a hapless dork in a bad suit. That "loser" characterization went more or less unchallenged until a recent Microsoft campaign kicked off with some surreal spots featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.

One vignette—set in a discount shoe store—shows a churro-wielding Seinfeld as he helps Gates choose a pair of loafers; a family watching from outside the store is fascinated, not by the fact that these two moguls are shopping in a mall, but by the shoe style under consideration. "Is that the Conquistador?" asks the mother.

In another, lengthier episode, the pair move in with an average family à la Paris Hilton's The Simple Life. When a frustrated Gates asks why they're doing this, Seinfeld responds, "You and I are a little out of it. You're living in some kind of moon house hovering over Seattle like the mother ship. I got so many cars, I get stuck in my own traffic. We need to connect with real people."

The offbeat humor in these ads has produced dramatically varied responses. And in a post at the Church of the Customer Blog, Ben McConnell argues that any reaction is a good reaction. "You loved them, hated them, or were baffled by them," he says. "That made them polarizing, [and] therefore a strong foundation-builder."

Nine months after launching the HDX Dragon, Hewlitt-Packard faced a quandary: Sales of the feature-packed laptop were underwhelming. The company took action by partnering with Buzz Corps to create a social media campaign that targeted 31 influential bloggers. Dubbed "31 Days of the Dragon," it gave each blogger the opportunity to host a week-long contest in which one of their readers would win an HDX Dragon.

Mack Collier outlines the campaign's spectacular ROI in a post at his Viral Garden blog:

* Sales of the HDX Dragon increased by 84 percent.
* Overall PC sales increased by 10 percent.
* Traffic to hpshopping.com jumped by 14 percent.

According to Hewlitt-Packard, "[W]e tracked well over 380,000 links on Google using the exact phrase '31 Days of the Dragon' with no media spend and the estimated collective reach is well in excess of 49 million from the 31 participating sites, reciprocal links and other sites covering/mentioning the giveaway since its inception." Not too shabby.

"Overall," notes Collier, "the results are very impressive, but not shocking to those of us that are active in this space. What I would like to see HP do next is use the success of the '31 Days of the Dragon' promotion as incentive to develop stronger ties with bloggers, especially the company's blogging evangelists."

And this concept leads right to your Marketing Inspiration: "It's great to boost awareness/sales by giving stuff away," says Collier, "but simply taking the time to create and cultivate relationships with bloggers and blogging customers can work wonders as well."

Released on----- 6th November, 2008