In stark contrast to Altimeter's Charlene Li's opening keynote characterization that Dell is a brand that is completely out of control, Dina Gowar, Global CSMB Advertising Lead, at Dell said the
computer marketer actually has a powerful data center that is continuously monitoring all of its users, especially "influeners," continuously to figure out how to influence them. Gowar said the room,
which is housed in Dell's Texas headquarters, is actually referred to as "The Command Center," and that it is like "something out of NASA," a "darkened room" with "rows and rows of computers,"
presumably the non-exploding Dell-branded ones.
Gowar said the focus of the Command Center is to give Dell's marketing team insights that lead to potential consumer insights by turning user
"behavior and just patterns of what people are doing" into "some insight and some educated guesses on where that will lead you next."
Interestingly, I had a chance to speak with Li after her
presentation this morning, and she acknowledged that she knew Dell is one of GroupM's biggest customers but still felt the "brand out of control" metaphor was a good one to present.
Asked what
brand is "in control," Li said, "Apple."
We then spent a great deal of time talking about the legacy of Steve Jobs, and how we both admired but detested is onerous control over his customers,
who continued to love him nonetheless. She said she is about to post a blog about that, so stay tuned for that.
At the end of our conversation, I quipped that the original Apple "1984"
commercial likening IBM to "Big Brother" actually would be Apple today.