HP uses cartoons to rally its troops

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has worked very hard to position itself among its competition, and instill a competitive spirit among its employees. As part of that effort, it hired a cartoonist after its Compaq acquisition to design a series of comic strips that portray competitor chief executives such as Scott McNealy, Sam Palmisano and Michael Dell in less than flattering caricatures.

One caption reads, “While the Pentagon plots the invasion of Iraq, Michael Dell dreams up a malevolent strategy to put untested, bargain basement PDAs in the hands of unsuspecting Americans,” cutting to a picture of Dell in a fighter jet “carpet bombing” America with PDAs (personal digital assistants).

Another refers to Palmisano as, “the master of magic mirrors and mischief … intrigues customers while masking proprietary practices,” portraying the IBM chief executive officer with a magician’s cap and crystal ball.

Perhaps the sharpest barbs are reserved for McNealy, who isn’t the shy, retiring type himself. The HP cartoonist, Pete McDonnell, shows McNealy as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, finally having “gone through the looking glass.”

McNealy is pictured next to a small stack of cash that looks bigger in the mirror behind him, saying “We may not be profitable, but have you seen our piles of cash?”

The cartoons were meant for internal use at HP only, but somehow wound up in the hands of resellers and partners, who in turn leaked them to various Web sites.

The head of HP’s former public relations agency, Donovan Neale-May, makes no apologies for the cartoons. His agency was hired shortly after the merger to create an “in-your-face attitude” among HP sales and marketing people, he said.

“There are very few companies that we have developed this notion of competitive communications with to the degree and level of granularity as the new HP,” Neale-May said.

Neale-May Partners no longer represents HP. The current agency responsible for the cartoons, Hill and Knowlton, was unable to convince an HP representative to answer questions about the cartoons in time for this report.