Under Pressure, Toshiba Challenges On the Go Types to ‘Choose Freedom’
Todd Wasserman
As its No. 1 ranking is under attack from notebook rivals Compaq and IBM, Toshiba this week launches a $60 million campaign aligning its name with the concept of mobility under the tagline “Choose freedom.”
The TV and print effort will target business users. Toshiba wants to redefine itself as a leader in mobile computing and fend off rivals who have spent lavishly on new notebook-specific campaigns.
A series of four-color print ads launch today, via DGWB, Irvine, Calif., in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The first features a horizontal photo of a skyline with the headline, “Business and freedom are announcing a major joint venture.” Copy outlines the benefits of mobile computing. “Millions are finding their true potential with our portables,” it reads.
The ads will soon roll out in business titles, including PC Magazine and Information Week.
Toshiba is due to launch its first TV spots for its portables on Jan.31. Set to the Soup Dragons’ “I’m Free,” they continue the “Choose freedom” theme and show businesspeople free to have fun thanks to the portability of their computers.
In one, an office worker stores his computer in his bicycle pack and takes it to the roof of his office building for a ride. The ads will air on CNN, The Discovery Channel, ESPN and broadcast news affiliates.
Andy Bass, Toshiba’s vp-marketing communications and e-business, said the effort “challenges businesses to enable people to have the freedom to choose when, where and how they work,” he said.
The campaign, to run until 2001 or later, is the Irvine, Calif., firm’s first such effort under Joseph Formichelli, executive vice president of the computer systems group, who joined Toshiba in November 1998. He previously directed the launch of IBM’s ThinkPad notebook computers.
Toshiba spent $7 million on its notebooks in the first 10 months of 1999, per Competitive Media Reporting. Compaq spent $40 million and IBM, $20 million.
Toshiba leads the corporate market for notebooks in terms of volume, but is feeling pressure from IBM, according to Gerry Purdy, editor of Mobile Insights, a Mountain View, Calif., newsletter. Compaq’s Presario is challenging as a strong No.2 to Toshiba in retail, per PC Data, Reston, Va.
COPYRIGHT 2000 BPI Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group