Young Actor Sells Dell and Dude; Ad Campaign A Winner for Computer Maker
12/24/2001 - 6:01:00 PM
By Crayton Harrison
Dec 23, 2001 (The Dallas Morning News - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) --A teenager with a knack for salesmanship has helped Dell Computer Corp. make big strides in a market where it was once almost nonexistent.
His name is Steven, and he's the star of Dell's year-old television ad campaign, making aggressive sales pitches to his friends' mothers to convince them to buy a Dell for their kids.
He's aggressive, unrelenting, and maybe even irritating. And his catchphrase -- "Dude, you're getting a Dell" -- is helping the company take over the consumer market even though its PCs aren't sold in stores.
"Steven has helped in bringing in new customers," said Bryant Hilton, Dell's consumer market spokesman. "Before this campaign, somebody new who was going to get a computer for the first time may have been a little intimidated to go to Dell. This got us way over the hurdle."
That's because Steven -- played by 21-year-old Ben Curtis, a New York University acting student -- is simultaneously an engaging personality and a master of the sales pitch, said Paul Tilley, who handles the account of Austin-based Dell for advertising firm DDB Chicago.
"Steven has let us go out there and do a really hard sell," Mr. Tilley said. "We had to work with it to make sure he wasn't too annoying. We didn't want him to be disrespectful. We don't want to tell people they're stupid. He does a good job of being right in the middle."
Mr. Hilton credited Steven with giving Dell a huge boost in consumer sales. Dell reported last month that its third-quarter consumer sales rose 38 percent from the third quarter of 2000. International Data Corp. now ranks it as the No. 2 seller of home PCs, behind Hewlett-Packard Co.
Steven may have helped some, but lower prices have provided the real boost for Dell's consumer sales, said David Goldstein, president of Channel Marketing Corp., a Dallas-based research firm.
"I'm sure they keep running them because they're successful, but they keep running the same ad and keep changing the offer," Mr. Goldstein said. "It's free shipping one day, a free printer the next day, a free CD burner upgrade the next week. Finally, that kid's mother must've broken down and bought the darn computer."
In any case, the campaign has reaped benefits for Mr. Curtis, originally from Chattanooga, Tenn. With his boyish face on millions of TV screens every night, he's become a mini-celebrity with plenty of roles to choose from.
"It's been incredible exposure," he said. "I get called in for lot of auditions for films, pilots, everything like that. And theater, too. People definitely come up to me at least once a day and say, 'You're the Dell kid.'"
Before his Dell debut, Mr. Curtis had done a local commercial and a project for the A&E network that was only aired in schools. He came into his audition for the part of Steven with little indication of what the advertising agency wanted.
"They handed me the script, and I started doing Steve on the spot," he said.
The original commercial had Steven videotaping a message for his father, instructing him on Dell's special offers. "I thought the first commercial would be the only one we did," Mr. Curtis said. "Then when we did the second one, I thought it would be the last one. Then we did a third and a fourth, and it kept going. It's been really incredible.
"And now I'm wearing tights," he said, referring to his latest commercial, in which Steven is dressed as an elf helping Santa at the mall.
Advertising firm Lowe Lintas created the original Steven ad. DDB took over when Dell merged its corporate and consumer advertising accounts, and the firm decided to make more Steven commercials, Mr. Tilley said.
Because Steven is usually speaking on behalf of his friends, not to them, his biggest fans are older women, Mr. Tilley said.
"We get letters from grandmothers who think he's so cute and from women in their 30s and 40s who want to know about him," Mr. Tilley said. "But we also get teenage girls who want his picture."
Dell's Mr. Hilton said the company is planning on more Steven commercials. But Steven may be reaching the end of his sales career, said Mr. Goldstein, of Channel Marketing.
"I don't think the Christmas series they're running is as powerful and compelling as the originals," he said. "They're lacking a little bit of edge, and he's starting to wear. Just about all the dudes that wanted Dells have probably gotten Dells by now."
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