SAP's new ad blitz takes aim at Oracle

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SAP's new ad blitz takes aim at Oracle

Robert Westervelt, News Editor
SAP is targeting Oracle Corp. customers with a television commercial that is saturating cable TV and could be expanded into new markets by the end of the year.

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We've been saying for a long time that the best run businesses run SAP, and here was a way to deepen that communication with proof.
Costanza Tedesco,
vice president of global advertising and brandingSAP

A 30-second commercial, which began running Nov. 14 on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel, refers viewers to an SAP.com/results Web site, which gives information about SAP's Safe Passage program. The commercial is part of an expansion of SAP's "Outperform" print advertising campaign, which launched during the week of Oct. 24, appearing in The Wall Street Journal, and Business Week and The Economist magazines.

The TV ad shows office workers applauding, while an announcer communicates that companies that run SAP are 32% more profitable than those that don't run SAP software. The percentage was based on the results of a recent profitability study of companies listed on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange.

"We've been saying for a long time that the best run businesses run SAP, and here was a way to deepen that communication with proof," said Costanza Tedesco, vice president of global advertising and branding,

Links on the referral Web site also point to customer success stories, software product overviews and a NetWeaver platform presentation.

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The goal of the commercial is also to build brand recognition for SAP, an area where SAP executives admit is a weak spot for the software vendor in the U.S. SAP executives hope the commercial is appealing to senior level IT project decision makers, including business executives and senior level IT managers.
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"We've definitely been improving, but there is still room to grow in the United States," Tedesco said of SAP's brand recognition in the U.S.

SAP plans to expand the commercial to other cable channels, including the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, Bloomberg financial channel and the Golf Channel, Tedesco said. Other markets are also being considered, including Canada and South America, she said.

SAP's Safe Passage program offers license credits and migration services to companies that move from Oracle's newly acquired PeopleSoft or J.D. Edwards software to SAP's mySAP software. The program was extended to include Retek and small and midsized businesses.

In contrast, Oracle commercials appear fairly regularly on many cable TV channels in the U.S. Most commercials tout Oracle's database management system and grid computing message.

Oracle also launched a similar license credit program it calls "Off SAP." The program gives incentives to companies wanting to migrate from SAP to Oracle's E-Business Suite.