AST Research Hires Agency to Shape Image : Marketing: Computer maker turns to Team One Advertising in an effort to set itself apart from low-price competitors.
Reflecting the fact that low prices no longer distinguish one personal-computer maker from another, Orange County’s largest computer company is turning for the first time to an outside advertising agency to help it shape its corporate image.
AST Research Inc. in Irvine, which up to now has depended on its own marketing department for all of its advertising, has hired Team One Advertising, a subsidiary of ad giant Saatchi & Saatchi. The objective, said Mike Morand, AST’s vice president of marketing, is to plant in consumers’ minds a clear image of its various products.
AdWeek magazine estimates that AST will spend $5.5 million on its new ad campaign. That figure is low, Morand said.
Founded in a garage in 1981, AST this year made the Fortune 500 list and reported annual revenue of $944.1 million, a 37% increase. The company makes desktop, file server and notebook computers under the Premium, Bravo, Advantage! and Premium Exec names.
AST’s decision to hire an outside agency reflects the intense competition among computer makers, especially in the second tier it shares with Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. in Irvine, Dell Computer Corp. in Austin, Tex., and Zeos International Ltd. in St. Paul, Minn.
“PC clones are like toothpaste,” said Andrew Cohen, who writes about computers for AdWeek. “As they become more and more of a commodity, as there’s less difference between the products, they need an ad campaign to stand out.”
AST’s competitors have been sending their advertising work to outside agencies for years. Dell has used San Francisco-based Goldberg, Moser, O’Neill for four years, and Toshiba signed on with Los Angeles-based Chiat/Day/Mojo in 1990.
Pressure on smaller computer companies has been increasing recently as top manufacturers such as International Business Machines Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. have begun moving into the $1,300-to-$3,500 price range, which companies such as AST--the so-called clone makers--formerly used to set themselves apart.
The need to be different reaches beyond personal computers. Before it announced its choice, AST was one of seven high-tech companies in California seeking new ad agencies, an unusually high number, Cohen said, and an indication of the industry’s general malaise. Included are makers of software, video games and operating systems.
Team One Advertising, based in El Segundo, is in some ways an unusual choice by AST. The agency, created in 1989 to handle the Lexus auto account for Saatchi & Saatchi, has no other computer clients. Its specialty in the past has been to promote luxury items--champagne, expensive watches and the Yonex tennis rackets used by players such as Martina Navratilova. Recently, however, the company won a consumer electronics account, VCR Plus, which makes devices to program VCRs.
AST has usually targeted the opposite end of the consumer spectrum: the bargain-hunter. “I have never thought of AST as the Lexus of computers,” said Brad Johnson, who writes about computers for Advertising Age magazine in Los Angeles.
