Intel Re-Brands

After more than 20 years of service as a tool to teach consumers what brand of chip to ask for inside a personal computer, Intel has decided it’s out with the old “Intel Inside” campaign in favor of a new logo and tag line that includes the phrase “Leap ahead.” The logo and tag line will be formally announced today.

As part of the major re-branding effort, the 37-year old Intel logo, its name in lower case letters and a dropped “e,” which was created by Silicon Valley pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, has been, well, dropped. The new logo is simply “intel” with the same swoop around the word that has circled the phrase “Intel Inside” for over two decades.

“We’re aligning our brand strategy with our platform strategy,” said Bill Calder, a spokesman for Intel. The “Intel Inside” campaign focused solely on the company’s microprocessors, such as its popular Pentium line of chips. But Intel has changed its focus to include entire platforms, including the microprocessor as well as other surrounding chips and chip sets, such as Centrino for laptops able to surf the Internet using Wi-Fi, and the upcoming Viiv platform for home entertainment computers. The new logo aims to reflect Intel’s focus on whole platforms, instead of just on its microprocessors.

“As we evolve as a company, it makes sense to evolve our brand,” said Calder.

Still, “Intel Inside,” which launched in 1991, went a long way in teaching PC users something about the important components inside their computers, and helped separate the identity of the microprocessor from, say, the memory chip or graphics chip. It’s a major change.

“It was a great campaign and it really put us on the map with consumers,” said Calder. And the term “inside” won’t disappear completely from Intel’s microprocessor lines. The company will use its new logo alongside the name of the processor and the word “inside” with its chips, such as “’intel’ Pentium M inside”.

The new tag line, “Leap ahead” is meant to express what the company has made possible in the past in terms of technology, and what it intends to continue doing going forward, said Calder.

The company has been mulling the logo change for a few years, Calder said, ever since it shifted its focus to its platform strategy, which it reinforced earlier this year by reorganizing the company into five new business units: the Mobility Group, the Digital Home Group, the Digital Enterprise Group, the Digital Health Group and the Channel Products Group. Previously, the company had divided its units around chip architectures used in specific products, such as the Intel Architecture Group and Intel Communications Group.

The company spent much of this year working on the new logo, Calder said, but he declined to say how much the re-branding effort would cost the world’s largest chip maker.

–Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service