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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
III. Analyzing the
Communication Process
5. The Communication
Process
EDS Rebuilds Its Image
Until 2000, if you asked the average person
what, if anything, he or she knew about a company
called Electronic Data Systems (EDS), you
would probably get a blank stare. Some might
associate the company with Ross Perot, the company’s
founder and former presidential candidate,
and know that he later sold EDS to General
Motors, but it is unlikely they would know anything
more. Perot founded EDS in Dallas, Texas,
in 1962 with the somewhat radical notion that
organizations would hire an outside company to
handle all of their computer operations. At the
time, the word “outsourcing” had not even
entered the business lexicon. However, the idea
caught on quickly and EDS came to rule the
industry it created, which was evolving beyond
just computers into information technology services
(ITS). EDS grew exponentially after being
acquired by General Motors in 1984 and became
a $14 billion giant before splitting off from the
automaker in 1996 and becoming an independent
company. In many ways the success EDS had
under General Motors’ wing turned out to be a
competitive handicap. A hefty annuity from GM
provided a steady revenue stream that lulled the
company into complacency and fostered an
unwillingness to change even though the world
was changing all around it, particularly with the
rapid growth of the Internet.
In early 1999, EDS hired a new CEO, Dick
Brown, who realized that he and his management
team had to do more than reinvent the company—they
had to remake its identity and brand
image. EDS was perceived as a stodgy, oldeconomy
firm in a new-economy industry and was
being eclipsed by flashier firms such as Razorfish,
Scient, and Viant, which focused purely on e-services,
as well as a reinvented IBM, which had
rebuilt its identity around the themes of e-business.
Brown hired Don Uzzi, whose record
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
included leading a marketing turnaround for
Gatorade in the 90s, as EDS’s senior vice president
of global marketing and advertising and put him
in charge of rebuilding the company’s image.
Brown wanted Uzzi to build awareness of EDS
and make the company a household name. However,
there was also a second, equally critical goal:
to market EDS to its own employees and make
them feel good about working at the company.
The first area Brown turned to in establishing
EDS as a power brand was advertising. EDS
began working with the Fallon McElligott
agency, which came up with a new tagline, “EDS
Solved,” that was chosen to position the company
as a problem solver in the complicated,
ever-changing world of e-business. While print
work broke in the fall of 1999 with full-page ads
in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and
other major publications, the company did not
limit its newfound boldness to advertising. Uzzi
decided the Y2K fervor provided an opportunity
for EDS, which had a thriving year-2000 conversion
practice in place, as a publicity opportunity.
He arranged for EDS’s strategic command center
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