Excellent Marketing Initiatives By Accenture

Introduction

For every business in today’s era, it is crucial to invest a significant amount of time in deciding and implementing the marketing strategies of the brand. No matter how huge your company is or how excellent your product is, it will rot on the shelf. If the company fails to market its product to customers. Many businesses have seen the doom of their golden eras because they were not on their toes and failed to market themselves as a brand and as a product for customers' consumption.

Image 1 − Accenture logo

Accenture today serves 99 of the Fortune Global 100 companies and three-quarters of the Fortune 500 companies. Along with the brand today, it is present in more than 47 countries and interacts with people from more than 200 diverse languages. All of this is possible because Accenture was involved in the critical business challenges it faced.

In this article, we will be understanding the brief summary of Accenture as a brand and also learn about the various marketing initiatives by Accenture to achieve success.

The Birth and Growth Trajectory of Accenture

Accenture was launched in 1942 as a consulting arm, the Administrative Accounting Group, of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. In 1989, Accenture was called Andersen Consulting. Though it was a separate business and was earning 1 billion US dollars, there was little knowledge about the workings of the enterprise. Accenture was considered a part of the corporate parent firm Arthur Andersen. To highlight the fact that both firms are different and increase brand awareness, Accenture launched a big marketing advertisement. A case was finally filed, and then Andersen Consulting was asked to represent itself. 

Image 2 − Global map showing countries where Accenture has operations as of May 2015. (Attribution: 16912 Rhiannon (Rhiannon Ruff), AccentureMap 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The company, with the help of internal employees, stumbled on the name Accenture, which rhymes with adventure, has the initials "AC" in Accenture, and can also be meant as an accent to the future with Accenture. Accenture believes in the philosophy of innovation delivered, and today it is one of the largest firms providing its customers with global management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing services.

Marketing Initiatives by Accenture

Accenture as a brand has won many business battles with the help of excellent marketing initiatives that the team has taken. All these initiatives are worth noting. Accenture, through its marketing tactics, has proven that marketing will not just help you in sales but will also help you overcome challenges in business.

Some of the initiatives of Accenture that we would like to highlight are:

Changing the Brand Name and Communicating the same with High Efficiency

We have already discussed the name-changing procedure for the Accenture brand. Here, we want to highlight the fact that changing the name was not an easy task. The brand at that time was present in 47 countries and was interacting with people from 200 different languages; hence, the name had to make sense to all. Along with this, the company ensures that the changed name is conveyed to every employee working at Accenture, all the clients of Accenture, the general public, leading industry analysts, potential recruiters, and the people from the academy. A huge campaign was launched to celebrate the naming ceremony of the brand, and all the stakeholders were duly informed.

Celebrity Endorsements

Accenture understood that customers would want the company to have a face. A face that they can trust. Hence, Accenture hired Tiger Woods, the golf superstar. It helped the company convey the message of performance and high delivery to the public. Accenture spent more than 300 million US dollars on the marketing campaign and ran slogans like "We know what it takes to be a tiger" and "Go on and be a tiger".

The brand was doing well with celebrity endorsements and gained a lot with the international appeal of Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods helped Accenture accelerate their business growth and marketing techniques, but when the rumors started to flow regarding Tiger’s extramarital affair and definite absence from golf, Accenture dropped Tiger as their spokesperson and decided to cut all ties with him so that the brand image did not suffer. The customers were too focused on Tiger Woods to recall and appreciate Accenture's strategic move.

Innovation Delivered Marketing Campaign

When Accenture understood the problem with business consulting firms, they decided to add service to their portfolio to serve customers better. From this idea, they started the campaign "From innovation to execution, Accenture helps you accelerate your vision". Even though the companies now had good roadmaps on how to move ahead or deal with the problem, they still faced the issue of finding the right fit and the crucial time of getting lost while doing that. Hence, Accenture came up with outsourcing services for its clients to help them move ahead at a faster pace, and Accenture also got an edge over its competitors.

Another thing was that Accenture came up with a payment system in which the company had to pay Accenture only when Accenture had met the target they had decided on during the consulting. This helped them gain more trust from their clients and have a reputable and unbeatable image in the market.

One-stop Destination for all Business Consulting Needs

Accenture understood that competitors like McKinsey or IBM are either focusing on technological reformation or business consulting, but customers here want a mix of both. Accenture continued to come up with innovative and creative ideas that are grounded in business processes as well as IT. Along with this, Accenture also started outsourcing services for its customers, which will help them execute the consulting recommendations.

Greater than Marketing Campaign

In this campaign Accenture highlighted the successful case studies from clients like Unilever, Starwood Hotels, and Caterpillar and also highlighted the focus of Accenture on globalization and technologically advanced solutions. The greater than symbol also present in the logo of Accenture was used and the slogan of the campaign was “High performance. Delivered.”

Conclusion

Accenture today has been leading global management and consulting worldwide. This success of Accenture goes not only to the hard work of the employees but also to the fact that they kept on improving their services and expanding their work portfolio as per the needs of the customers. They understood what customers required and started serving them the same. Along with this, the marketing communication that the brand has been doing for many decades has played an important role in developing a positive image of the brand and in attracting new customers. It has also helped the brand reach new geographical locations. Accenture today has a strong foothold in the business environment, and this is possible because of the creative, breathtaking, and innovative marketing strategies of the brand.