Intel Bringing Intel Inside Stickers, Flashy Advertising to Smartphone World

From DailyTech: Mobile chipmaking giants Qualcomm, Inc. (QCOM) and Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd.(KSC:005930) are warily eyeing veteran Intel Corp.'s (INTC) noisy, lumbering advances into the mobile market.

In the personal computer space Intel slowly destroyed would-be rivals by offering both solid product, downright nasty business tactics, and the iconic "Intel Inside" campaign that created an association between Intel chips and performance.

Now Intel is looking to take its sticker branding to its smartphones, starting overseas before eventually arriving in the U.S. next year. A number of smaller players have already gotten on board, but the biggest catch so far has been Google Inc. (GOOG) subsidiary Motorola Mobility, whose "Intel Inside" bestickered RAZR i launched Sept. 18 in London.

Some fear that Intel's noisy branding may create customer confusion -- a so-called "NASCAR effect". Jack Gold, a tech industry analyst at J. Gold Associates, tells Reuters, "Can you generate end-user demand for your processors? That's what they're all looking at, and that's not an easy thing to do in the mobile space where people aren't accustomed to it."

Andy Smith, a former Intel employee who was involved with the "Intel Inside" campaign in the late 1990s, warns the approach could backfire, commenting, "Putting an ingredient brand on the outside of your product should be like driving a sports car, something you want people to see you do because it's better. But if the reality is that there's nothing great about the chips, then it's going to be hard for them to repeat it."

View: Article @ Source Site