Posts Tagged: inspiron

naming / strategy — 9 Comments
19
Nov 09

Decrypting Dell

dell_confusion6I received an interesting comment on my recent post about the “overbranding” of Dell. In fact, I thought it made such good points that it deserved to be elevated to a full-blown post.

A warm welcome, if you will, for the Observatory’s first-ever “guest blogger,” Eugene — from I-haven’t-a-clue-where.

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Ken, you’re actually being too kind to the Boys from Round Rock. Dell’s branding dysfunction goes much deeper than the fact that their latest computer actually has a name larger than the computer itself.

Setting aside the sheer quantity of sub-brand names and modifiers in their arsenal, the quality of all them, from a pure naming perspective, is terrible. Not to mention the fact that as a family of sub-brands, they bear no familial resemblance to one another. It’s obvious they were all picked out of thin air, to satisfy a particular need at a particular moment in time, without any sense of overall brand cohesion.

Perhaps Dell’s worst branding offense is what they’ve done recently with their netbook line and soon-to-be-launched smartphone. Instead of opting for one of their wacko made-up names, they’ve dubbed them both “mini.” These are defining products for the mobile internet era we’re in, and they’ve given these products the distinct disadvantage of a completely generic name. Worse yet, a completely generic name already being used by six other products in this category. Let’s see, do I want to buy an Inspiron Mini, a Mini 3 or an Inspiron Zino, which is actually a mini-Inspiron. The choices are endless. And endlessly confusing.

Speaking of choices, I went to dell.com to check out a Zino. It only took me about five minutes to find it, which made me think of the Dell tagline, “Yours is Here.” Yeah, somewhere.

naming / technology — 11 Comments
16
Nov 09

Dell shifts into overbrand

zino

Dell layers a new sub-brand on its sub-brand

With a name that brings back memories of their dead-end acquisition of Zing, Dell now brings us Zino. Or should I say Inspiron Zino. Sorry — I mean Dell Inspiron Zino HD.

It’s not exactly a miracle of miniaturization (1.5 inches bigger than the Mac mini in every dimension). But I must admit, Dell has accomplished something fairly unusual: they’ve squeezed three brands into an eight-inch square.

This little bout of multi-branding actually pales in comparison to what Dell has accomplished across its product lines. It’s the branding equivalent of urban sprawl.

For example, a customer shopping for a laptop at dell.com can now choose an Inspiron. Or Latitude. Or Studio. Or Adamo. Or Precision. Or Vostro. Or Alienware. That’s seven independent sub-brands with crossover features, named with no apparent logic. Grafted onto those sub-brands are the sub-sub-brands: XPS, Mini and now Zing. I mean Zino.

I’m not speaking out against sub-brands. I’m speaking in support of common sense. Isn’t the whole point of creating a sub-brand to distinguish a family of products? Seriously, how many customers can play back what Dell’s product lines stand for?

“The more, the merrier” is not a marketing plan. That Dell can provide a ton of choices is a wonderful thing. That they can’t organize them into clearly defined sub-brands is a shame.

Oh god. It’s happening again. I’m feeling the urge to make another Apple comparison. But I will resist — and compare to Dell’s nearest competitor instead. Over at Acer.com, things are pretty darn clear: three laptop sub-brands, with multiple choices under each. Should Dell really give a damn how Acer does it? Only if they’re taking inventory of the reasons Acer just blew past them to become the world’s #2 PC maker.

To be honest, I’m surprised that Dell has let this go on. If making life simpler for customers isn’t reason enough to streamline, you’d think that cold, hard cash would be. While Dell’s margins have become microscopic, the cost of designing, manufacturing and marketing this mélange of sub-brands is huge.

But it goes as it goes. In Dell’s world, the Dell Inspiron Zino HD will be a perfect fit. Under-marketed — and over-branded.

strategy — 10 Comments
22
Oct 09

Michael Dell, truth-teller

The buck starts here (but why did he allow that wrong logo to appear behind?)

Apparently he likes almost all of the products he makes



Michael Dell’s remarks at a recent Churchill Club dinner in Silicon Valley shed an interesting light on the values of his company and the state of the PC industry as a whole.

First,  he dumped on the whole idea of netbooks. “Take a user who’s used to a 15-inch notebook and then give him a 10-inch netbook,” Dell said. “He’ll say ‘Hey, this is so fantastic. It’s so cute. It’s so light. I love it. But about 36 hours later, he’s saying ‘The screen’s gonna have to go. Give me my 15-inch screen back.’” Dell also said that “a fair amount of customers” weren’t too crazy about the low performance.

It won’t exactly cause an earthquake that Michael Dell is dissing the concept of an Insprion Mini 10 at the same time he’s selling them by the truckload. But just imagine the news it would make if Steve Jobs stepped up to the mike and said, “You’ll love how thin a MacBook Air is, but once you spend a few days with it, you’ll start missing that MacBook Pro.” We do hold different companies to different standards.

But Dell wasn’t done yet. Moving on to more manly machines, he said that when you get the latest processor technology, along with Windows 7 and Office 2010, “you will love your PC again. We actually have not been able to say that for a long time.” Of course, over the last three years he’s shown no signs of moral dilemma about taking people’s money in exchange for those hard-to-love Vista computers.

Clearly there’s little danger of Michael Dell ever being confused with Steve Jobs. But Dell’s own words shine a thousand-gigawatt spotlight on the stark differences between the two — as personalities and champions of different business models. Dell lives in an ultra-competitive world that’s all about numbers. Jobs lives in an equally competitive world that’s all about innovation.

The difference between the two can be seen in every product they make. If you listen, you can also hear it in every speech they make.