Lotus Notes

I spent 12 years working for Lotus Development Corporation – the latter four as part of IBM.  At the time IBM acquired Lotus, the Lotus brand was under extreme pressure.

Definition of a

IBM Acquires Lotus Development

Microsoft was killing Lotus on the desktop.  Excel was wiping out Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Office cratered Lotus SmartSuite.  Lotus’ challenge: drive growth in the Lotus Notes and cc:Mail businesses rapidly enough to offset precipitous declines elsewhere.

In the end, Lotus couldn’t stretch their brand far enough. But IBM could stretch theirs.  They acquired Lotus for over $3.5 billion, with the strategic intention of infusing IBM’s brand image with some of the Lotus goodness: innovation, agility, imagination, ambition.  Merged with IBM’s enduring attributes of trust and reliability, the acquisition proved “money well spent” as IBM’s brand image got an update, and the company made inroads into new channels.

IBM survived the Microsoft challenge and the “threat” of the Internet, continued making massive but complementary acquisitions, and quadrupled the firm’s market capitalization during the ’90s.

What a brand.

A Bubble that Burst

After I left IBM in 1999, I went to work for one of the last of the 20^th century’s “hot” internet startups – a company based in the quaint sea port town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Bowstreet had deep-pocketed investors, and during my tenure as CMO there we spent

$1,000,000 on a single day

in order to break through the noise and establish Bowstreet as a durable presence in the software market.

Our big brand splash included:

1. A three-page print ad in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Boston Globe
2. A magnificent 24-hour event held at San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, featuring the brightest lights from the venture capital community, representatives from all the major industry analyst firms, and over 500 of the internet elite
3. A billboard on Route 101 in Silicon Valley – in 2000, a property as hot as Dutch tulip bulbs in the 1630s.

You get the idea.  For the time, it was a plan which leveraged the most powerful marketing vehicles at a technology firm’s disposal.  We generated over $50 million in sales during the four months which followed the launch.

The bubble burst at the end of 2000.  Pipelines dried up – but awareness of Bowstreet and industry memory of the company enabled the firm to survive until Bowstreet was acquired – by IBM – some five years later.  The impact Bowstreet had on the market was a top subject in job interviews for years after I left the firm.

These are stories of elastic brands.  Brands that stretched to respond to changing market conditions.  Lotus and Bowstreet stretched too far.  IBM stretched… but returned to form a stronger, more vibrant, more compelling brand.

And this all transpired in the last century – before the media world completely changed. Before buyers took control over access to information about vendors and their products.

They aren’t giving it back.

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