IBM farms out co-marketing

IBM has responded to complaints from mid-market partners that its internal marketing machine was difficult to deal with by passing management of co-marketed events to a third party.

Marketing agency OnChannels has been brought on board to help craft campaigns for partners working in the 100 to 1,000-seat space.

The service will initially only be available to a small number of Premier business partners for select products and programmes. Up to 75 per cent of campaign costs will be met by IBM.

Mike Bernard, channels marketing lead, IBM UK & Ireland, admitted mid-market partners had sometimes been frustrated by the red tape that came with working directly with Big Blue.

“They are not big companies themselves and were telling us working directly with us could be onerous,” he said.

“OnChannels is a multifunctional agency so we are not tying our partners to one form of marketing.”

John Bloomfield, managing director of IBM partner Mangofile, is using OnChannels to help it launch into the consumer market.

IBM has so many layers and products that it cannot remain focused. OnChannels is dedicated to marketing and has ready-made blueprints we can use.”

Joseph Spear, marketing manager at IBM Premier Business partner Smart421, said: “There is a new era in IBM in terms of channel management. In my 15-month tenure here we have dealt with IBM directly which at times has been difficult as it is such a big organisation.”