The ad campaign, backing this week's launch of its print-on-demand service, has been created by HP's global advertising agency Goodby Silverstein in San Francisco and is likely to break in the UK in mid-August, with a global rollout to follow.
HP has been working on an initiative with the National Gallery in London since 1995, examining how the gallery can capture, store and reproduce images of the thousands of paintings it owns. One of the results is a first-of-its-kind service, whereby customers at the gallery's shop can have a poster of their favourite painting printed on demand.
The service launched yesterday, with 900 paintings from the gallery's collection available, such as Van Gogh's famous Chair, which features in print ads. The organisation hopes to have all 2,300 works for sale by the beginning of 2004.
HP has already been promoting its association with the National Gallery in a series of poster and print ads, seen on outdoor sites and on the London Underground. Media planning and buying in the UK is handled by ZenithOptimedia.
It is part of a 拢20m marketing spend on the brand in the UK between March and October this year. Globally, HP has earmarked $400m (拢245m) to spend on marketing for 2003.
Ian Curtis, director of enterprise marketing, said the National Gallery advertising campaign was part of a brand-awareness exercise and not designed to generate demand. He said: "It's about changing the perception in people's minds of what HP can do."
HP will run the National Gallery campaign throughout the third quarter of the year, with a trade advertising campaign due to break towards the end of 2003 and a consumer campaign at the beginning of 2004 a possibility.
The company has also run advertising campaigns based around its partnerships with Bang & Olufsen and Amazon.
When Hewlett-Packard and Compaq merged last year, market research showed that the company was perceived as good for printers, but consumers were not aware of its other technology. HP's recent brand-awareness push has sought to change this perception.
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