Dell to plough 7m more into UK marketing spend

Dell, the online PC retailer, is boosting its marketing investment by £6.6m in the UK next year. The decision to ramp its spend comes days after it appointed Carat to handle its £150m media account across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

It currently spends £44m on advertising in the UK and £11m of that is dedicated to online advertising. The company is to increase its digital marketing spend.

A source close to the company says spending is expected to increase by up to 15% across all media, but adds “a significant amount of that will probably go to online”.

The company has been suffering from tough competition in the global home-PC market, with rival brands adopting its low-cost model to successfully compete with it on price.

Carat won the EMEA account after beating Omnicom in a pitch. Carat has held the UK brief for 15 years, which it retained as a result of winning the European pitch.

Dell was founded in 1984 by Michael Dell to sell computers direct to the public. It set up its first international subsidiary, in the UK, in 1987.

Along with other computer manufacturers, the company has been hit by problems with the Sony-made batteries it uses in some models. Since August it has had to recall over 4 million PCs it has sold over the past two years.

It has also been the subject of an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission into its financial reporting.