HTC unveils branding campaign: Smartphone maker looking to make strong impression

Looking to build on the market share gained from recent smartphone launches, HTC Corp. unveiled a new worldwide branding campaign.
The new campaign, which will be based on its new “Quietly Brilliant” branding, is set to roll out in 20 countries in the coming weeks with an initial splash in the U.S. and U.K. HTC said the campaign, which is budgeted in the tens of millions of dollars, will include national televisions spots beginning Oct. 29, outdoor and digital media.
Steve Seto, director of marketing at HTC, said the campaign will focus on personalizing the HTC brand with consumer needs around the “You” tagline and is designed to reach 95% of the U.S. population at least 36 times by the end of the year. That seems likely as Seto said the campaign will include television advertisements across more than 45 broadcast and cable channels, including the big four broadcast channels and a number of primetime shows and sporting events. The digital media will be nearly as intrusive as HTC signed a deal with Yahoo Inc. to basically take over all advertising spaces on the site’s homepage. HTC worked with Los Angeles-based Deutsche LA Inc. on the “You” campaign.
HTC’s Seto said that while the campaign will quickly gain steam for the holiday shopping season, it’s scheduled to continue throughout 2010.
HTC’s recent push into the smartphone space has included a number of devices based on its Touch Pro architecture running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile 6.5 platform as well as a number of Android OS-powered devices. The strong smartphone push has come at a time when smartphone sales have skyrocketed across the industry with analysts noting the device market is quickly segregating into two segments: low-end devices sold at or near free and higher-tier smartphones. This growth has come at the expense of the once-hot feature phone segment that has been squeezed by the faster-growing segments.