I went on a bit in my last post about “Event TV” and how the only real event TV spot ever made was the Rid Scott, Steve Hayden and El Jobo Apple 1984 epic. But, having said that, I often wish, looking back on my somewhat checkered career, I had received a dollar for every time a client has asked me for “a 1984.” Whenever that happened, I have been forced to tell them that not only could they not afford it, they wouldn’t have the gumption to only run it once, and above all, they wouldn’t have the balls to approve it in the first place.
I would also be rich if I had a dollar for every time a client has asked me for an “Intel Inside” advertising campaign. In this case I am obliged to take them by the hand and gently explain that “Intel Inside” is not an advertising campaign. Yes, Intel has run hundreds of ads featuring that tag line, but what they have also done over the last twenty years is shelled out mega-millions of dollars on probably the world’s most ambitious co-op program. Every time you see that logo on a Dell, IBM, H-P, Acer, you name it computer/server ad, Intel has kicked in a significant amount towards the media cost. And they’ve been doing it since the eighties.
Consider back then if anyone gave a toss what chip was running their Ford gearbox sized PC. The one that ran DOS, had virtually no graphics, and used floppy’s the size of dinner plates. Amazingly, in those dim, dark, Silicon Valley days, the Marketing Director of Intel (I can’t remember his name, too much gin has flowed under the bridge since then) convinced Intel management – A bunch of propeller headed geeks – They should spend obscene amounts of money building a brand. This is not a corn flake company we’re talking about here. This is a microprocessor company. They make stuff 99.99% of human beings never see. And the geeks said… OK.
There is absolutely no question this would never happen today. The bean-counting MBA’s would Power-Point the crap out of such a stupid suggestion, proving without a shadow of a doubt that it couldn’t work, because it never had worked.
Or to put it another way, in the words of that late, great Guinness poster. “I don’t like the taste of Guinness… That’s why I’ve never tried it."
George Parker
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