IBM Watson: Creative Re-Explaining
February 25, 2022
I read “IBM Charts New Brand Direction With Campaign Built Around Creativity.”
The article contains an interesting statement allegedly articulated by Jonathan Adashek, cco and svp of marketing and communications at IBM
Adashek said IBM has historically had trouble articulating a clear and unifying purpose for a business as sprawling and multifaceted as the 110-year-old enterprise giant has become. But with business moves like the Kyndryl spinoff helping to strengthen the company’s core focus on growth areas like artificial intelligence and hybrid cloud computing, IBM decided it was time to boil down its public-facing message.
Does this mean the Watson “anti creativity” has been left behind?
Nope. Here’s some evidence:
Ogilvy global chief creative officer Liz Taylor said the concept for the campaign evolved out of the idea that a certain type of creative thinking is central to the business projects that many IBM clients are attempting to tackle—and that the company’s range of enterprise tech and consulting services can help with that. “It really started in the sort of notion of this era of creativity is the defining currency of business,” Taylor said. “It’s not necessarily creativity in the way I might think of my job, but our audience is just increasingly responsible for creating and executing visions for how to compete in this new world.”
Yep, IBM is creative: Clever contracts related to a certain nation state in the good old WW2 era, addressing cancer and telling, “You are history”, and now a type of creative different from that delivered by Madison Avenue-types.
Yep, “not necessarily creativity in the way I might think of my job” which is to explain that IBM fuels creativity.
Logical? Not necessarily. Did you know that IBM’s creativity allowed it to acquire a Microsoft Azure consulting firm called Neudisic? Buying innovation and a revenue stream for a semi successful cloud provider? Yes. Creative? Sure.
Stephen E Arnold, February 25, 2022
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