Dell touts its specialty: building to order

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Dell this week will air the first commercials in a major advertising push, a back-to-basics campaign that's part of its broader efforts to rejuvenate sluggish computer sales.

The new consumer-oriented ads are wrapped around the phrase "Purely You," a play off the "Pure Dell" slogan the company uses for its corporate marketing. The campaign, created by the BBDO Atlanta, emphasizes what historically have been Dell's main advantages: build-to-order manufacturing backed by strong customer service.

The ads move in a new direction, stressing those basic themes rather than spotlighting aggressive prices and promotions, said Rosendo Parra, senior vice president of Dell's consumer and small-business markets in the Americas.

"It became clear to us we needed to change and go back to the core elements of what made our company successful," Parra said.

The TV spots are to run on the four major networks, as well as ESPN, CNN and Fox News.

The first one is a play on the company's ability to custom-build computers. A conversation between a sales representative and a customer plays over video of a computer moving down an assembly line. The computer takes different twists and turns as the customer chooses the features he wants. A narrator caps it off: "At Dell, we don't build technology for just anyone; we build it for only one -- you."

The company asked BBDO Atlanta to plan a campaign that would go beyond "price-item" ads and restore the luster to the Dell brand, said Chris Hall, president and CEO of the ad agency. Hall said his team went back to what made the company the world's largest computer maker: the direct model.

"It's been a long time since Dell has tried to leverage that difference with the consumer," he said.

Hall and Dell spokesman Mike Maher declined to say how much it cost to produce the "Purely You" campaign, but it comes on the heels of a sharp increase in Dell's ad spending last year, according to Advertising Age.

The magazine's annual survey of the top U.S. advertisers showed that Dell's ad budget jumped 23.1 percent to $939 million in 2005. Spending at rival Hewlett-Packard fell 8.7 percent to $833 million.

The campaign -- the biggest since the "Interns" and "Dude, You're Getting a Dell" ads -- is broader than last year's marketing push. And it was designed to complement the company's broader efforts to kick-start sales, Parra said.