intel

advertising / apple / creative / intel / iPad / mac / strategy / tablets / technology — 9 Comments
5
Apr 12

Intel’s “new era” echoes Apple’s old idea

Thanks to Intel, “a new era of computing” has arrived.

No more thick, heavy laptops. No more clunky design. This is the dawn of the “ultrabook”: super-thin, super-light and beautifully sculpted.

It’s a bold claim and a fantastic idea, except that it ignores one obvious fact:

The Intel era of ultrabooks looks exactly like the Apple era of MacBook Air, which began four years ago.

It’s particularly interesting because MacBook Air has actually been running on an Intel processor all this time. And PC companies have in fact dabbled in the super-thin space before, though they haven’t had much luck.

What’s really different this time is that Intel has packaged the technology, trademarked the word “ultrabook” and made it all available to their PC partners. No need for any of them to worry about all that messy “innovation” stuff. Now they can just start churning out MacBook Air lookalikes, with Intel supporting their efforts with a huge ad campaign.

Intel’s “new era” will be all around us. Not just on TV, but in print and on billboards, with such headlines as ”Mastadons. Dodos. Bulky laptops.” And “So futuristic, it will even seem futuristic in the future.” Clearly this new era in computing didn’t come with a new era in writing.

Intel’s press release makes a very big deal about the scope of this campaign. They’re spending “hundreds of millions,” making it Intel’s biggest advertising push since Centrino in 2003. The commercial above, called Desperado, is the first of three big productions that will be rolled out in the coming weeks. While they were shooting the commercials, they shot extra footage to be integrated into their web pages. Great idea. Obviously lots of thinking went into this.

Since I’m in the business, I try to be understanding about the challenges faced by the creative teams. Since I once worked with Intel’s agency, I’m sensitive to the fact that Intel is not an easy client. They have systems in place that influence the quality of their ads, and I don’t mean in a good way.

I’m also a bit tainted when it comes to Old West commercials, since I just finished working on one for JCPenney with Ellen DeGeneres. When you recreate another era like this, a hundred decisions contribute to the overall tone. JCPenney happily agreed with our dark and dirty vision. Intel’s world is sanitized. Their scary guys aren’t very scary, looking more like soap-opera actors picking up some cash on the side. Bottom line: it feels a lot like an ad. Or, more accurately, an ad with a gaggle of approvers worried about tainting Intel’s image.

It’s also interesting to note the irony of this commercial. Intel must show the monstrosities as a counterpoint to the gorgeous new ultrabooks — and in the real world, these blights on computing are all powered by Intel.

These observations, of course, come from the picky ad guy inside of me. I imagine that mainstream viewers will follow the story, have a chuckle or two, and get the whole “new era in computing” idea. That’s an extremely loose interpretation of  ”new,” but forgivable by most advertising standards.

More disturbing, if you believe in a little thing called truth in advertising, are the very last words in the commercial:

Ultrabook. Inspired by Intel.

Uh … inspired by who?

advertising / apple news / creative / dell / insanely simple / intel / simplicity / steve jobs — 68 Comments
15
Feb 12

And now, a different kind of Apple book

True confession time:

I’ve written a book.

Something tells me you won’t be surprised when I tell you it’s about Steve Jobs and Apple. But this book is different. Really.

That’s because (a) I had a unique vantage point to some pivotal events in Apple history, and (b) this book focuses on one thing alone — the core value that has driven Apple since the beginning.

Insanely Simple is about Apple’s obsession with Simplicity.

You can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it organizes, innovates and communicates. In fact, one could argue that it was Steve’s unrelenting passion for Simplicity that helped Apple rise from near-death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.

My observations come from over 12 years of experience as Steve’s agency creative director, from NeXT to Apple. Also relevant to my story are the years I spent on the agency team during John Sculley’s rule at Apple. And then I had some interesting (and often excruciating) experiences in the worlds of Dell, Intel and IBM — which made me even more conscious of what sets Apple apart.

To Steve Jobs, Simplicity was a religion. But it was also a weapon — one that he used to humble competitors once thought to be invincible.

Apple’s devotion to Simplicity is the one constant that can be traced from the first Apple II computer all the way to today’s iPad. Though the company’s success is built upon engineering and design skills, it’s the love of Simplicity that truly powers Apple, revolution after revolution.

Technically, this is a business book. The idea is that in a complicated world, nothing stands out like Simplicity. If you better understand how Apple’s obsession has driven its success, you can adopt the same principles to boost your own organization — or your own career.

That said, Insanely Simple is a general interest book too. It’s a fun read for anyone who’d like to know what it was like to work in Steve’s world during the rebirth of Apple. It will give you a better understanding of what makes Apple Apple.

Crass salesmanship alert: I think you’ll like it. In my book, as I do in my blog, I use my personal experiences with Apple, NeXT and other companies to illustrate the power of Simplicity — and to warn of the evils of Complexity. Many of my stories have never been told publicly, so you’ll find more than a few surprises.

There’s a bit more about the book here.

Insanely Simple is available April 26th, but you gain extra appreciation points if you pre-order — which you can do at iBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound and 800-CEO-read.

Last, I invite you to join my new mail list over there in the sidebar. I promise not to abuse the privilege, and I’d love to make you part of my secret club.

Thanks all!

advertising / intel / observatory / technology — No Comments
5
May 11

Intel’s “Chase” strikes again

Intel’s on-again, off-again flirtation with creativity has taken a turn for the better, thanks to the efforts of agency Venables & Partners.

Remember the neat film they made a few months back — The Chase — to introduce the latest Core i5 chip? What made it such a hit (over 2 million views) was that, instead of being confined to film, they used the visual language of computers to draw us into the action. In this “bad guys chase Bond-like woman” story, the characters run, jump and fight through FaceBook, YouTube, iTunes, chat windows, video games, Google Maps and more — and it all actually makes sense.

But it was a film. That is, all of this action took place inside the single frame you were watching on YouTube.

Now The Chase is back, and it’s literally broken out of its box. When you visit the Intel page on Facebook, you can see the movie, or you can “launch the HTML5 experience,” which performs its intricate choreography all over your own display.

Is it great? Well, they definitely get an A for effort. The HTML5 experience is truly fun to watch. It’s the launching part that gets a bit dicey.

Before you can watch, you have to download and cache what appears to be the Library of Congress, but is in fact all the video clips needed to run the experience.

Maybe you’ll have better luck with your setup. To be fair, I must have tried this a good 15 times, using Safari, Firefox and Chrome. Only twice did I make it in less than a minute (Chrome was fastest), the other times varied from pretty-darn-long to way-way-long (well over three minutes). Several times Firefox literally gave up the fight without even telling me why.

Once you get it going, it really is cool. One cosmetic difference between the movie and the HTML5 version is that HTML5 apparently requires the windows to be visibly loaded — so you get about eight tiny windows stacked at the bottom left of your display, hoping that you don’t notice.

Then there’s the game, in which you’re challenged to find nine bits from the movie hidden in various places on the Internet. Unfortunately, I couldn’t play because the Play button set off the Ken Segall Personal Defense System. Upon clicking, the app asked permission to do a Facebook body search, extracting my name, profile picture, user ID and list of friends. Not sure what would have happened, but it sure sounds like my friends would get spammed with a note telling them how much I loved this. I panicked and backed out.

So, yes, there are some negatives, but the creative work itself remains fun to watch. And the page does a nice job of creating some positive buzz for Intel.

It’s just unfortunate that the mechanics of the HTML5 production give you the feeling that this kind of stuff will work a lot better one day in the future. Maybe when we’re all using i5 chips?

Some credits for this effort. Agency: Venables & Partners; Writer: Josh Parshauer; Art Director: Beau Hanson; Associate Creative Directors: Paul Foulkes and Tyler Hampton. Interactive Creative Director: David Kim; Production Company: Nexus Interactive Arts (live action directors: Smith & Foulkes).

advertising / creative / intel / observatory / strategy — 4 Comments
8
Sep 10

Intel’s character fetish

What is it with these people and their character-based ads? Far and away, Intel has used more zany characters to tell their story than any other technology company.

This isn’t a marketing plan, it’s an obsession.

It was the Bunny Men who started them down this dark path so many years ago — those dancing engineers, dressed in colorful cleanroom suits. Then came Homer Simpson, Blue Man Group, Aliens, Singing Processors and the forlorn Robot from this year’s Super Bowl.*

Now comes the crowning touch. Using a big chunk of their Intel-Inside cash, Intel satisfied their character addiction by renting the Penguins from Madagascar. Looks like they splurged for the Dreamworks package deal too, because the entire cast of Shrek appears (awkwardly) at the end.

Obviously Intel believes this kind of hilarity will propel them to marketing success. Only two things wrong with this theory: (1) it won’t, and (2) it ain’t funny.

If advertising were really this easy, we’d see SpongeBob for Apple and Wile E. Coyote for Google. It’s ironic: Intel tries desperately to be known as the world’s smartest company, yet they can’t bring themselves to give customers credit for having a little intelligence.

I have to say, this Penguins spot came as a surprise to me. The marketing team at Intel has totally changed over the years, and I thought for sure they’d gotten over this “wacky character” fixation. Must be something in the water over there.

(*Full disclosure: During my time as a creative director on the Intel business, I actually participated in some of these misadventures. I swear, I was blindfolded and had a gun to my head.)