The Hindu Business Line : HCL wooing new customers thru ad campaign

Connecting public
"We wanted our ads to connect with the public. This is what the present ad, labelled the `Touch Technology' campaign, attempts to do."

Chennai May 15 Mention `IT company' and most will imagine a nerdy looking chap, sitting in front of a computer, in a new age office, working for someone in the US. It is this stereotypical image that HCL Technologies wants to change.

TV commercial

Its television commercial, conceived and designed by the advertising firm FCB Ulka, shows a young man asking for a lift and chatting with the car's driver, an investment banker. When the banker realises that his passenger is a HCL employee, he mumbles `Oh! IT professional' and leaves it at that. To make him relate to what HCL does, the young man shares instances of the company's work in the car safety solutions space, powering stock market software, ATMs, rural computers run on car batteries and finally in the life sciences space.

"We need new customers. Today we are a 45,000 strong company. By 2010, we will have over one lakh employees. This means we will have to reach out to about 10 lakh new prospective customers by then. The ad has kick-started this effort," says the HCL Corporate Vice-President - Strategy, Mr Saurav Adhikari.

He told Business Line over the telephone that the campaign is expected to run through this year along with many spin- off ads.

"As a technology company, we had a tendency to be nerdy and it reflected in our past ad campaigns. But we wanted our ads to connect with the public." This is what the present ad, labelled the `Touch Technology' campaign, attempts to do, he said.

Subsequent ads will highlight the entire gamut of technology work that HCL can do besides indicating that it is a $4 billion company.

Television commercials will feature new visuals showing futuristic work that HCL can do such as designing solutions for Metro rail systems and embedded technology solutions that are part of new age buildings.

A print campaign will also commence in the next few weeks. The company is spending close to Rs 30 crore on advertising this fiscal, up about 25 per cent from last year's spend.

More Stories on : Software | Advertising | HCL Technologies Ltd

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Infosys BPO plans Manila operations in second quarter

Spruced up

HCL wooing new customers thru ad campaign

IT sector downplays queries

WNS closes Marketics Tech buy

Alcatel-Lucent buys NetDevices

Empower Industries ties up with Japan's HTL

Ram Info ties up with APSRTC

Syntel sets its sights on $1-b revenues

Raja to take charge as IT Minister today

Bharatmatrimony's new CTO