Three critical elements for Intel’s successful ingredient branding
Intel has succeeded in creating one of the most successful brands in the world for an incredibly technical component that end users cannot even see. Based on the “Inside Intel Inside” case, I have pulled out three critical elements that I believe account for the success of this ingredient branding campaign.
1. The ingredient brand must offer a significant benefit or performance attribute. When the campaign began, Intel was the leading microprocessor company, delivering a performance-based product. The company offered leading technology and reliable chips, with a 70% share of the overall desktop microprocessor market in the 1970s. However, end customers were not aware of this performance benefit. The first campaign of the graffiti red X illuminated the difference between the 286 and 386 chip, which was the first microprocessor that could operate on multiple operating systems, including DOS, Unix, and Windows. The 386 was simply a much better product, and the ingredient brand needed to shed light on the differences of an Intel chip. “Intel Inside” can attribute its success to the significant benefit that the chip was able to provide to computers.
2. The ingredient must be viewed as an essential feature of the product in which it is embedded. Because of the campaign, the microprocessor became viewed as a very important component of the PC. All of Intel’s advertising was designed to explain why having “Intel Inside” was important. For example, the Pentium processor was introduced in 1994 under the “Intel Inside” umbrella, and it was marketed through 20-second ads that showed the many different kinds of activities that one could do with a computer. These ads showed end users the power of the microprocessor chip inside of their PCs. Thus, consumers began to value the Intel microprocessor for its reliability and leading technology.
3. Both the ingredient brand and product brand must benefit. At first, Intel’s ad agencies proposed “Intel. The Computer Inside.” However, this would incite a reaction among Intel’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners. Therefore, to enlist the support of OEMs in the campaign, a co-op advertising program was designed such that OEMs could accrue co-op advertising dollars on the basis of their purchases of Intel chips. The co-op dollars could be used to pay for up to half the cost of any advertisement produced by OEMs, as long as they put Intel’s logo in their ads and on their computers. Motivated by the advertising dollars, Intel was able to create a mutually beneficial agreement for the ingredient chip and PC product. Thus, Intel’s brand (despite it being the ingredient inside) became well-known across the majority of OEM PC’s.
