Intel no longer just wants to be inside. It wants to be incognito.
An unusual new marketing program involves the P.T. Barnum of the Pentium processor funding the development of high-end, multimedia-rich advertising banners for companies like Reebok, Delta Air Lines, AT&T, and Levi Strauss. All the advertiser has to pay is the cost of the media buy on Web sites like The New York Times, Weather.com, and InfoSpace. But strangely, there is no Intel Inside logo to be found; nowhere do the ads indicate they were bankrolled by the chipmaker.
The program is a boon to the five advertisers involved in the first stage of the trial, as well as for the Westport, Connecticut, Web agency ModemMedia, which supervised the creative work on many of the ads. But what does it do for Intel?
"Their thinking isn't that this helps the Intel brand," says Forrester analyst Jim Nail. "They're trying to give people with the higher-end processors an experience that reinforces their purchase of the processor, while people who haven't upgraded will be missing something."
But the trial's subtlety - even ModemMedia partner G.M. O'Connell describes the Intel brand as "transparent" within the ad campaigns - may undermine those goals. First, there's the fact that there's no Intel logo on the ad banners. Then, there's the fact that users who haven't loaded up all their VRML and streaming media plug-ins will get an alternative ad banner, and probably won't realize they're missing a knock-your-socks-off experience. So how are they to know who's behind the flashy ads?
"It's curious to me that Intel would be doing this kind of advertising without putting their brand on it," says Sheila Craven, who runs AdScope, a technology ad tracking service. "It's a definite shift in strategy for them."
But within Intel, executives claim that this type of low-key marketing is entirely separate from the stringently run and high-profile Intel Inside co-op marketing program, which funnels cash into the ad campaigns of PC manufacturers as long as they display the blue Intel circle. Here, Intel's objective isn't to boost chip sales in the immediate future, but rather to stimulate demand over the long-term.
"We're interested in showcasing rich Internet advertising," says Suzanne Brisendine, the director of Intel's PC advertising program, part of the company's content group. The function of the content group is to promote "rich" content of all varieties - including Web advertising. And, as Brisendine points out, "The richer any content is, the better it runs on a Pentium. That's the real bottom line."
Intel's partnership with ModemMedia seems to have encouraged some normally conservative advertisers to cut loose and experiment with technologies like VRML, Narrative Communication's Enliven, and RealNetworks' streaming media.
"We probably wouldn't have done this if it wasn't for Intel," says Kip Smith, a Delta spokesman. "We would've waited until things were more defined. But when opportunities arise, we'll do all we can to help the industry and help our customer." Not to mention save a bundle on ad development costs, though Smith said he was unaware of the financial arrangements.
The program also benefits software developers who produce the tools that make glitzy, interactive ads possible. Along with ad agencies, they seem to be making a case that consumers are clamoring for bigger, better, bolder Web banners. "The truth is, most consumers find advertising informative and entertaining," says Peter Forman, president and CEO of Ligos Technology, which makes a 3-D authoring tool used to develop Delta's ad. "It's useful. It could be that advertising will be the killer app of the Web."
But media-rich ad banners may be more attractive to advertisers used to 30-second Seinfeld spots than surfers trying to navigate the Web. "This is pushing advertisers to utilize richer ways of doing advertising on the Web," ModemMedia's O'Connell said. "If we can't offer a more compelling experience, we're going nowhere."
The Intel/ModemMedia partnership was unveiled last week at an Advertising Executive Roundtable at New York's Guggenheim Museum in conjunction with Internet World. One focus of the program is to deliver "scaleable" ads that can detect what sort of system the viewer has and deliver an appropriate experience - either low bandwidth or high bandwidth.
"Advertising shouldn't be for the lowest common denominator," says Intel's Brisendine. "You should be able to design the best ad first, and then scale it down for other users."
ModemMedia's O'Connell expressed his hope that the program will include even more advertisers in 1998. "This is a first step for both of us," he said. But he and Brisendine declined to be more specific. Brisendine did indicate, though, that if the program expands, Intel would not necessarily pay all creative costs for the advertiser.
While Intel's involvement in the wave of Delta, Levi's, AT&T, Citibank, and Reebok ads now in circulation may be invisible, analysts believe that the program could be an effective part of the company's overall marketing efforts. "They have to continue to dangle the excitement of multimedia in front of the consumer," said Vernon Keenan of Zona Research. "The intent of Intel is to keep up a constant drumbeat of these messages: the Bunny People, the Intel Inside logos, the whole nine yards."
