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Marvell
Essential technology, done right

Building a purpose driven challenger brand

Tom Hayes, VP Marketing & Whitty with Marvell co-founders Dr. Sehat Sutardja & Weili Dai, pitching the media at The China Club in Hong Kong.

Full Story | Overview

 

Most marketing effectiveness case studies start with a sluggish or declining sales graph, which is then dramatically reversed by the new campaign. Marvell's case is different. It was already a leading brand in the rapidly growing market for low-power digital storage chips.

Marvell had ambitious plans to expand the company's product line, and we were tasked with helping them take on industry giants like Intel.

After spending a month with the sales team, we discovered that potential customers almost always thought they were being called on by Marvel Entertainment, so we rather cheekily persuaded the legendary co-creator of Marvell's famous namesake to become our Brand Ambassador. 

"Celebrities are different from the rest of

us mortals. Everything is magnified:

money problems, egos, schedules, legalities. But we happen to like working with people who ain’t entirely normal; when properly used, they can turn a routine event into an instant newsmaker."

George Lois

We positioned Marvell as being on a heroic mission to reduce the energy foot-print of high-performance electronics and Stan kicked-off the campaign at CES in Las Vegas. Flush with our success at CES, we hired the celebrity environmentalist's Adrian Grenier and Mark Ruffalo to extol the virtues of energy efficient technology at private events during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and SXSW in Austin.

In partnership with ARM and The Energy Foundation, we then spear-headed an initiative that was designed to unite the global semiconductor ecosystem around energy efficiency, and kicked-off the program with a pledge to promote greater global access by supporting the development of new technology for the non-profit 'One Laptop per Child'

As a result of our efforts to promote energy efficiency, we were invited to travel with Governator Schwarzenegger on a trade mission to Asia, and, with great fanfare, he opened Marvell's new design center in Shanghai.

 

The end result?

 

Our celebrity driven campaign helped make Marvell famous for making our hyperconnected Always-On world more energy efficient.  

  • The "Smart Electronics Act" was introduced by U.S. Congressman for the 17th District of California and Silicon Valley, Mike Honda.

  • Sales in enterprise networking, carrier infrastructure, and consumer segments increased 56%, 28%, and 20%, respectively.

  • Net revenue surged by 48% to $3.55 billion.

Source: Gartner

Mark Whitty

"Honest, inspiring, entertaining and necessary. Whitty may well be the most interesting and authentic person left in

the advertising industry." 

Tom Hayes, VP Marketing

Services

Brand Strategy

Digital, Print, Design, Video

Trade Shows & Events

Public Relations

Government Affairs

Client

Tom Hayes, VP Marketing

Collaborators

Chris Kirk, Mind Bomb Films

Jim Cunneen, California Stategies  

See other work