Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

Years ago, Dell made a name for itself by using a tagline that went along the lines of something like “Dude, you’re getting a Dell.” The company went on to become number 3 in the world of personal computer sales. But rapidly changing technology and increased competition have pressured Dell. To reposition itself, the company has started a new marketing campaign this fall. It will spend ‘hundreds of millions’ of dollars to familiarize consumers with its product line and its new tagline “You can tell it’s Dell.”

As consumers show more interest in video calling, vendors are releasing products that target this growing market. Recently, both Cisco and Logitech announced new hardware designed to help consumers make video calls through their HDTVs. It’s too soon to tell how the marketplace will react to those products but consumers are clearly excited about video chat. They’ve had the capability to tap this technology through their PCs and now vendors are developing the mobile video chat market.

The recession seems to be abating in some industries. As a result, companies in growing sectors like technology and electronics, are putting more money into advertising. Specifically, vendors in these industries are using paid search to increase sales and market share.

Late last month, I blogged about IDC’s forecast on the rising sales and marketing budgets for IT vendors. Industry leaders noted that businesses often purchase more equipment and services as the end of the calendar year approaches. Another study by Spiceworks indicates that industry optimism this year is spreading to the small and medium sized business (SMB) sector as well.

The communications industry continues to boom as consumers use their mobile devices for everything from text messaging to watching video. At the same time, the increasingly complex devices are befuddling consumers who want the most up-to-date gadgets. To maintain strong positive relationships with customers, at least one advisory company is recommending that communications retailers reach out through traditional retail store fronts.

In a recent blog post, I highlighted a comment made by Mark Wilson, Sybase, regarding 4th quarter optimism for the B2B software industry. There’s reason to believe this optimism extends to all vendors of information technology (IT) products. The International Data Corporation (IDC) Executive Advisory Group issued its most recent forecast last week and is expecting improvement in IT vendor marketing and sales budgets for the rest of the year.