SHARE
Facebook X Pinterest WhatsApp

HP Campaign Bows to New Marketing Dynamic

For years now solution providers have been prodding vendors to do something more meaningful in the way of advertising beyond just creating branding campaigns or offers around specific products. For all intents and purposes, branding campaigns are vendor chest-thumping exercises that generally fail to promote any new commercial activity, while product advertising tends to emphasize […]

Written By
thumbnail Michael Vizard
Michael Vizard
Jan 18, 2007
Channel Insider content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More

For years now solution providers have been prodding vendors to do something more meaningful in the way of advertising beyond just creating branding campaigns or offers around specific products.

For all intents and purposes, branding campaigns are vendor chest-thumping exercises that generally fail to promote any new commercial activity, while product advertising tends to emphasize price to the detriment of margins.

Pointer Click here to read more about HP’s plan to drive SMB demand by advertising its VARs.

So it was a little more than refreshing to see Hewlett-Packard take the lead among vendors on Jan. 16 by coming out with an advertising campaign targeted at small and midsize businesses that promotes the value of the relationship that HP provides through its channel partners. Aimed squarely at Dell’s widely reported service issues, the ads are part of what HP describes as a pilot that will ultimately include specific ads around about two dozen HP partners in different regions of the country.

It’s a little unclear how HP went about selecting the partners it chose for this campaign and the company has not made any commitments to maintaining the effort. And while a few random ads in the Wall Street Journal are nice, this needs to be a lot more than just HP thumbing its nose at Dell to be truly worthwhile. That means it needs to be followed up with face-to-face events, Web seminars and other opportunities where HP leverages its media resources to not only promote the brand of its solution provider partners but drive some actual business to those partners.

After all, the core purpose of marketing is to drive down the cost of sales, and that means that effective lead generation needs to be a core part of any advertising campaign in order to justify the overall time and expense put into developing the campaign. So while HP is to be applauded for taking these first steps after years of prodding, it definitely needs to develop a deeper overall plan beyond this initial pilot project.

In the meantime, other vendors would do well to take note of what HP is doing here.

Pointer Be resolved to do better marketing. Click here to read more.

In the future, solution providers will be judging vendors by what they do to help them drive actual business as opposed to today’s model where vendors demand that solution providers drive business to them in exchange for the privilege of having their permission to sell their products. The lead- and demand-generation models in the channel are in the process of going through a major transformation, and this ad campaign from HP is only the beginning of a new marketing dynamic in the channel.

Michael Vizard is editorial director of Ziff Davis Media’s Enterprise Technology group. He can be reached at michael_vizard@ziffdavis.com.

thumbnail Michael Vizard

Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a writer for publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight, Channel Insider and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

Recommended for you...

RavenDB Unveils Database-Native ‘AI Agent Creator’
Luis Millares
Sep 8, 2025
Orchestrate Technologies CEO on Success with Syncro
Jordan Smith
Sep 8, 2025
VMware 9.0 and AI Push Broadcom to Record Highs
Q&A: Why MSPs Need to Evolve Into Security Educators
Channel Insider Logo

Channel Insider combines news and technology recommendations to keep channel partners, value-added resellers, IT solution providers, MSPs, and SaaS providers informed on the changing IT landscape. These resources provide product comparisons, in-depth analysis of vendors, and interviews with subject matter experts to provide vendors with critical information for their operations.

Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.