Mr Saad Arshad
9-502-083
R E V: D E C E M B E R 16, 2002
YO U N G ME M OON
Inside Intel Inside1
It was February 2002, and Pamela Pollace, vice president and director of Intel’s worldwide marketing operations, finished reviewing some recent market research and began preparing for an interview with a major magazine. Intel Corporation developed and sold a variety of products and services that were used as the building blocks for numerous electronic devices. The company was most well known for its microprocessors, which could be found in over 80% of the personal computers sold worldwide.
Given that the PC market was considered relatively mature, Pollace knew that one question the journalist would almost certainly ask was: “Is Intel planning to extend its ‘Intel Inside’ brand campaign to other product categories, such as cell phones, PDAs,2 and so forth?” It was the same question she asked herself every day, and yet it was still a tough question to answer. The “Intel Inside” campaign was more than ten years old, and there was no question that the campaign had succeeded in creating one of the most valuable brands in the world. But it was Pollace’s primary responsibility to protect, sustain, and build that brand equity. The 15-year Intel veteran was familiar with all the arguments in favor of extending the brand, but she was also acutely aware of the risks: “In thinking about extending our brand, we are definitely exploring uncharted territory. . . . The biggest issue regarding extending the brand is whether—if we extend it—we will dilute the brand in some way. The cost of a mistake is damaging all the brand equity that we have worked so hard to build.”
Background on Intel
Based in Santa Clara, California, Intel was a semiconductor company—number 41 on the Fortune
500 list—with over 83,000 employees and 2001 net revenues of $26.5 billion. (See Exhibit 1 for selected financial statistics.) When Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore
R E V: D E C E M B E R 16, 2002
YO U N G ME M OON
Inside Intel Inside1
It was February 2002, and Pamela Pollace, vice president and director of Intel’s worldwide marketing operations, finished reviewing some recent market research and began preparing for an interview with a major magazine. Intel Corporation developed and sold a variety of products and services that were used as the building blocks for numerous electronic devices. The company was most well known for its microprocessors, which could be found in over 80% of the personal computers sold worldwide.
Given that the PC market was considered relatively mature, Pollace knew that one question the journalist would almost certainly ask was: “Is Intel planning to extend its ‘Intel Inside’ brand campaign to other product categories, such as cell phones, PDAs,2 and so forth?” It was the same question she asked herself every day, and yet it was still a tough question to answer. The “Intel Inside” campaign was more than ten years old, and there was no question that the campaign had succeeded in creating one of the most valuable brands in the world. But it was Pollace’s primary responsibility to protect, sustain, and build that brand equity. The 15-year Intel veteran was familiar with all the arguments in favor of extending the brand, but she was also acutely aware of the risks: “In thinking about extending our brand, we are definitely exploring uncharted territory. . . . The biggest issue regarding extending the brand is whether—if we extend it—we will dilute the brand in some way. The cost of a mistake is damaging all the brand equity that we have worked so hard to build.”
Background on Intel
Based in Santa Clara, California, Intel was a semiconductor company—number 41 on the Fortune
500 list—with over 83,000 employees and 2001 net revenues of $26.5 billion. (See Exhibit 1 for selected financial statistics.) When Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore