Lou Gerstner, formerly of American Express, becomes IBM’s new CEO and buys Lotus for $3.5 billion. Microsoft’s team dedicated to eviscerating Lotus swells to
over 400, making them five times the size of ours’ in Cambridge. Challenge: Reassure the faithful (developers, analysts, customers) that Lotus will be supported by IBM and that
Microsoft won’t eat them. Solution: A $75M global, 360-degree campaign that all geographies and agency partners make their own. Thanks in part to this campaign and
many others, IBM’s global brand ranking rises to #3 in 2001. Up from 278th in 1996.

Dan Wieden tells Joe Pytka, our director, that “we should have used Superman when we had Microsoft.”
 I always wanted to work at Wieden/Kennedy. Wieden’s comment? The next best thing.