By R. Michael Brown, Brand Consultant and Former IBMer
Picture one of my college students buying a sandwich. The cashier scans a barcode, the card reader beeps, and the receipt prints. In about 10 seconds she has touched technology that IBM invented. If you told her that, she’d probably ask you who is IBM?
I don’t have to guess about that last part. I teach college students about communication, typically over 100 per semester, and for the last three years I’ve asked my classes the same question: “Have you heard of IBM?” More than 95% say no.
It isn’t a scientific survey. It’s a show of hands in a classroom. But it’s been remarkably consistent, class after class and year after year. As someone who once worked at IBM, I find it startling every time.
The barcode she just scanned is the Universal Product Code, developed by IBM engineer George Laurer and introduced in 1973 (IBM). The hard drive, the great-grandparent of the storage in her laptop, goes back to IBM’s RAMAC in 1956 (IBM).
The Lenovo ThinkPad laptop she uses was invented and branded in 1992 as an IBM ThinkPad before IBM sold the Personal Computer Division to Lenovo in 2005. And the first time a machine beat the best humans at their own game on prime-time TV was IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy! in February 2011 (IBM). My students were in elementary school.
So, here’s the question I keep coming back to: how do you turn a brand around when the next generation doesn’t know it exists?
Familiarity Isn’t Relevance
Older audiences have the opposite problem. They know IBM, but they know the wrong IBM. Forbes contributor Jim Osman, writing after IBM’s stock fell more than 25% in a single session this July, put it bluntly: “Whenever someone mentions IBM, I still think of large, clunky computers from the 1980s.” He added: “IBM has spent years changing what it does. It has been far less successful at changing what investors think it is” (Forbes).
His sharpest line applies well beyond Wall Street: “Familiarity does not equal relevance. Ask BlackBerry and Kodak” (Forbes).
The brand still carries enormous value. Interbrand puts it at $39.4 billion, 22nd in the world (Interbrand). But as Osman notes, IBM was second on that list in 2010 (Forbes).
So, people over 50 see a relic, and people under 30 see nothing. Those are different problems, and the second one is harder.
IBM Already Knows This
The most candid assessment I’ve found comes from IBM itself. In a February 2026 post on how it rebuilt its employer brand, the company’s careers team listed the perceptions its research surfaced. IBM was “seen as legacy and hardware-first in a cloud and AI narrative,” was “not always top-of-mind among next-gen tech and consulting talent,” and “in some local markets, we were overshadowed among new graduates by consumer and local tech brands” (IBM Careers).
The employees IBM interviewed were just as direct. One told them: “Relying on history isn’t conveying the right message. Who we are today is relevant and important.” Another said: “Shine a light on our recent achievements and the people behind them. That’s what drives action” (IBM Careers).
Then came the diagnosis I’d put on a wall: “The issue wasn’t the awareness. It was connections. Candidates didn’t see themselves in the story we were telling.” (IBM Careers).
My classroom poll says awareness is a problem too. But IBM’s point holds. Even the students who have heard the name don’t see themselves anywhere in the story.
Why It Matters for a B2B Company
The obvious objection is that IBM doesn’t sell to college students, so why should it care? IBM’s CEO has made the same point himself: IBM is an enterprise company and hasn’t made consumer products in decades (The Verge).
But IBM’s own marketers have described their audience as “not just the decision makers of today, but the decision makers of tomorrow, who are growing into these leadership roles within their organizations.” (Chief Marketer). My students are those decision makers of tomorrow.
Marketing research backs this up. Professor John Dawes, in work published by LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, found that “up to 95% of business clients are not in the market for many goods and services at any one time” (B2B Institute). Brands win by being remembered when those buyers finally are in the market. It’s an uncomfortable symmetry: 95% of B2B buyers aren’t shopping today, and 95% of my students can’t name the company that hopes to sell to them someday.
David Aaker, often called the father of modern branding, defines the goal simply: “To be relevant to a category or subcategory a brand needs to have the credibility and visibility to be considered” (Bob Morris interview). IBM has the credibility. With my students, it has no visibility at all.
There’s a talent angle, too. IBM’s chief human resources officer, Nickle LaMoreaux, told Fortune in February: “We are tripling our entry-level hiring, and yes, that is for software developers and all these jobs we’re being told AI can do” (Fortune). It’s hard to recruit people who have never heard your name.
Five Ways to Earn a Second Look
1. Win the builders, not the whole generation
IBM doesn’t need all of Gen Z. It needs the students, developers, and analysts who will eventually sign purchase orders or join its teams. The tools already exist. IBM SkillsBuild offers free training in AI, cybersecurity, and data, including a track for university students (IBM SkillsBuild). Treat it as the front door of the brand, not a side program. And put it in front of teachers like me.
2. Put the name on what people already see
IBM builds AI-driven fan features for the Masters and Wimbledon (Alm Corp; IBM Newsroom). Young fans use those features without registering who made them. Make “built by IBM” part of the experience rather than fine print.
3. Claim one frontier and own it
Osman’s critique is that IBM tells too many stories at once: “Cloud. Cognitive computing. Watson. Hybrid cloud. AI. Automation. Quantum” (Forbes). For a young audience, pick one where IBM is clearly the protagonist. Quantum is the obvious choice. IBM has committed more than $10 billion over five years to quantum computing (IBM Newsroom) and is targeting a fault-tolerant system called Starling for 2029 (IBM Quantum). Those are company goals, not guarantees, but “the company building the next kind of computer” is a far better line than “the company that built the last one.”
4. Use the history as a reveal, not a résumé
IBM’s own employees warned against “relying on history.” They’re right if history is the pitch. It works if history is the plot twist. When I tell my students that the barcode and biggest inventor and seller of personal computers (where I worked) came from IBM, they lean in. Nostalgia asks people to remember. A reveal asks them to be surprised, and only one of those works on people who were never there the first time.
5. Show the work and skip the hype
Research from the National Retail Federation and the IBM Institute for Business Value found that Gen Z is “quick to spot misdirection,” does “not respond to hype,” and wants brands to be “transparent and authentic” (NRF). IBM’s careers team reached the same conclusion: “A story that doesn’t match reality can erode trust faster than no story at all” (IBM Careers). That means real engineers, public code, live demos, and honesty about what the technology can’t do yet.
The One-Sentence Test
Next semester I’ll ask my students the same question. I’d like to add a second one: finish this sentence.
“IBM is the company that ______________.”
Today most of them would leave it blank. The turnaround is done when they can fill it in with something current, specific, and true.
IBM’s careers team ended its own reflection with a line the whole company could adopt: “We didn’t need a new story. We just needed to tell the real one, and now we are” (IBM Careers).
They should start by telling it in my classroom.
Need Branding Help? Contact Me Today! Mike@RMichaelBrown.com
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