Intel seeks to reinvent its image in a changing marketplace, rolling out an ambitious campaign that remind us of their place in our lives

On the heels of announcements made at CES 2016 and a Keynote Speech by CEO, Brian Krzanich, Intel unveiled a new campaign that illustrates how the brand makes amazing experiences possible, enabled by Intel’s breakthrough technologies.

The campaign, called Experience Amazing, brings to light how the Intel technology found within various products is facilitating incredible experiences in the world outside of the microchip, experiences that are more tangible for consumers, more immersive for users, more global in scope and ultimately more engaging for everyone involved.

“We’ve been trapped inside the box,” says Penny Baldwin VP, General Manager, Global Brand Management & Reputation at Intel:

“[Our brand] has been distanced from the consumer, and largely made invisible because we have no direct connection, role, or context in the consumer’s lives. Most of the world’s population gives us credit solely as being a PC processor company when, in fact, the amazing experiences that we enable are huge in scale and scope, they range from rocket ships to race cars, to toasters, to wearables, to breakthroughs in healthcare, and wellness, and fitness, sports and entertainment.”

Baldwin is responsible for leading all facets of the Intel brand worldwide. In the coming months, her team plans to redefine Intel’s future and kickstart innovative technologies that surpass the TV screen, handheld gadgets, and other consumer devices. The campaign will provide a roadmap as to how their technology has become more visible, sophisticated, global and experiential. The belief being that the best way to get the message across has been to zone in on specifics and tell the stories about the breakthrough technologies that make the impossible possible.

One major reason this campaign exists is to draw in a group of young consumers that remain understandably aloof and comprise a missing piece of Intel’s goals for this decade: to create and extend computing technology to connect and enrich the lives of every person on earth. Many younger consumers, some who are leading or creating the very disruptions Intel products support, don’t even realize that Intel exists. According to Baldwin, there’s much lower brand recognition among this crucial target audience.

It is well known how much these younger consumers will influence buying decisions in the future. Experience Amazing, then, is meant to create a role in their lives by creating media that engages their loyalty. Through creative collaborations with dancers, designers, musicians and next-gen artists, Intel has created a cross-platform campaign that will define a technology conversation that matches the changing landscape of our time. Furthermore, the content and approach is relatable and relevant to the more integrated consumer experience and continues to push technologists, as well as ordinary people, to find new ways to create, invent and explore.

It also encompasses some strategic content plays; the campaign is hinged on a three-tiered marketing approach to its reinvention:

1) Spreading the word that Intel makes amazing experiences possible

2) Putting on an ongoing series of corporate events Intel will use to leverage its new position

3) Creating a series of experiential activations

Regarding these activations, Baldwin says,

“We believe that if you are going to assert the claim that you make amazing experiences possible, you must demonstrate amazing experiences where we clearly show the role that our technology plays in driving an amazing experience and allow the consumers to witness firsthand that direct connection.”

Some standout examples of those activations are:

The Butterfly Dress

Created by two fashion designers from Turkey, Ezra and Tuba Cetin, this intelligent butterfly dress is powered by Intel. The decorative butterflies on the dress are electronic devices that are powered by Intel’s Edison module for the Internet of Things.

As the dress wearer walks, the garment responds to touch, body heat, and movement. The butterflies fly off the dress and flutter around the model, demonstrating an amazing experience for partygoers and those in the realm of haute couture.

Drone 100

A culmination of art and airborne technology, Intel’s Drone 100 is working with Ars Electronica Futurelab using Intel® technology and Ascending Technologies’ drones to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Though mainly meant to hook younger consumers, as mentioned, this campaign is far-reaching in its goals; throughout the year, Intel will expand its target audience to include B2B partners, and specifically senior business decision makers. Baldwin comments:

“We want to make it clear to the other experience makers out there — especially the ones that we work with on large activations or across businesses — the role that our technology plays in enabling major technology improvements.”

As a newly minted “experience company,” Intel does not want you to forget that, as a chip manufacturer, it helped put the “silicon” in Silicon Valley. Now, it is helping the world change and enabling much of the novelty we experience from the microchip. For nearly 50 years, Intel has led research and development behind some of the most inspiring technologies and innovations of the past half-century.

“The last year has been about building out the strategy and then executing that strategy and following it through in everything that we do. In fact, starting with CES, I would argue that the brand strategy has now become our business strategy. Intel is bringing new experiences to demonstrate the brand promise:

We are transforming the industry of sports. We are transforming health and wellness. We are transforming entertainment. We are transforming gaming.”

“We are in discussions right now with every major sports league in the world and transforming the sports experience by incorporating Curie modules onto the clothing of athletes, onto the equipment of most athletes. Our technology enables some of the most sophisticated computing applications in the world that [in turn] enable you to live your life in better and more improved ways. We don’t get credit for that because, but, we are the secret sauce behind the scenes that nobody knows about.”

Now, with its shiny and integrated campaign, Intel can finally bust out of the box it has found itself inhabiting to showcase how its technology is behind experience as we know it.

Intel Experience Amazing

Originally published at www.psfk.com on January 22, 2016.