Brand Failures_ The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time - Matt Haig [92]
The PC also included a ‘sleep mode’ designed to eliminate the time spent booting up the computer for internet access. Users could simply push a button to instantly ‘wake up’ the computer.
‘Many of these benefits are made possible by the “legacy-free” design of the Web PC,’ explained John Medica, the vice president and general manager of Dell’s Web Products Group. ‘We hand-picked every piece of technology that went into the Web PC without carrying over any technology from previous PC designs that doesn’t contribute to a pure internet experience.’
The product was heavily marketed through a multi-media advertising campaign, centred around the slogan ‘Born to Web’, which drove customers to a Web PC website and free phone number, both of which acted as direct sales channels. In addition, Dell offered different peripheral products for the Web PC, including such devices as a digital scanner, a joy stick and a digital camera.
The press heaped praise on the product, although most journalists saw it as an attempt to echo Apple’s iMac strategy, with its emphasis on an eye-catching design, and user-friendly hardware. In his review for the Washington Post, Alan Kay said that although it ‘focuses more on style than computing,’ the Web PC is ‘a decent PC that’ll do most things you want.’
However, despite the number of benefits it offered, the Web PC was a flop. Dell pulled the machine from the market in June 2002, just six months after its release. Why? A number of reasons.
Firstly, the emphasis on design was misguided. Sure, the iMac had been a success. But Apple had always been about design, and Dell hadn’t. Dell’s core customers wanted good value and functionality, not groundbreaking design. Dell’s Web PC was good-looking, but its looks were ultimately irrelevant. Whereas Dell usually uses its own in-house design team, for this project the company gave the job to a radical San Francisco-based design firm called Pentagram. ‘I’ve designed great things that have been failures,’ the chief designer told Business 2.0 magazine. ‘The product didn’t fit what Dell is about.’
Computer User magazine noted another problem. ‘Oddly, Dell is targeting its Web PC toward home or home-office markets where users would generally be better off with an expandable upgradeable system,’ commented the reviewer. Dell’s core market was traditionally business-orientated.
Then there was the price tag. Although it was billed as ‘low cost’, the price of US $999 was more expensive than many competing models. ‘Consumers are looking at price first, then styling,’ said Stephen Baker, a PC analyst at research firm PC Data. ‘No one aside from Apple has been able to crack that styling thing.’
Furthermore, Dell was selling in a completely new way. By offering a complete package, the world’s number two computer maker was breaking with its typical practice of offering à la carte pricing that allows customers to mix-and-match computer chips and other components to create a customized PC. If the Dell brand signified anything it signified customization and functionality over design. The Web PC failed to offer either one of these values.
Lessons from Dell’s Web PC
It’s not about the product, it’s about the brand. The Web PC was not a bad product, as the plethora of positive reviews testifies. However, it did not fit well with the Dell brand.
A low-cost product needs to be perceived as such. Although the Web PC was good value, because the price covered a complete package, it appeared too expensive.
Imitating the competition was a mistake. When computer manufacturers saw the success of the iMac, they inevitably wanted a bite of the apple. This proved to be a misguided strategy for Dell, a company normally associated with ‘beige and boxy’ computers.
85 Intel’s Pentium chip
Problem? What problem?
In 1997, a professor of mathematics found a glitch in Intel’s Pentium chip. He discovered that the mathematical functions for the