Intel

New:  Repositioning, and new corporate logo (plus tagline)

Launched:  January 3, 2006

Story in brief:
Andy Grove, Senior Advisor and ex-CEO, is of course a living legend. The bigger the past, the more the future must promise. To quickly build a new legend, new CEO Paul Otellini knew he must not only change the strategic paradigm --   he must communicate the change with impact and credibility. The substance of change would be real (essentially, from PC-focused chips to market-facing chip/software 'platforms').  But Otellini also knew the communication challenge would be significant, perhaps beyond Intel's experience. So a year ago, he hired Samsung's marketing star Eric Kim and made him a direct report... an outsider who (as reported in Business Week) "could play bad cop and push through unpopular changes when necessary."  Kim then retained Inter Public Group's McCann Erickson for advertising counsel, and its FutureBrand unit for identity work.

On October 20, Kim indeed played bad cop: he told the leadership team that to put impact and credibility behind the new positioning (and implicitly, the new leadership), the 37-year-old "dropped-e" logo must go, along with the "intel inside" marketing badge.

To replace both marks FutureBrand designed a wordmark-in-a-swoosh, a variation of the Intel Inside swoosh, relocating its notch to anchor the Leap Ahead tagline. It's a balancing act, intended to express meaningful change yet retain the equity of a stable and trusted company.

Credits:
C.E.O. - Paul Otellini
C.M.O. - Eric B. Kim
Identity counsel and design - FutureBrand (NY)
Kate Messinger, planning; Paul Gardner, design direction

First Impressions:
The old Intel, I must confess, has long been on my Sleeping Beauty list, awaiting a prince's kiss. 'Funky' described it best, distinctive but kind of awkward. Its cherished internal meaning, "INTegrated ELectronics," had little external relevance.   Because the logo could not be used to convey Intel's ingredient-brand message in an appealing way on third-party products, "Intel inside" had to be created, thus setting up an unstable and dilutive two-logo branding situation. (Interestingly, there was a 2005 effort, designed by Addis, to narrow the difference by dropping the 'e' in the "inside" mark.)

I suspect most customers, with me, won't see a "new Intel" in this mark nor exactly a leap ahead; it's essentially the same brand, taking a real step ahead but a cautious step. Its most important contribution is to eliminate the two-logos problem along with the e-mark, thus enabling Intel to put all its pride and power behind a single coherent presence.

Although the change could have been more aggressive, this is nevertheless a solid case of rebranding, by a leader, to help effect corporate change.

Other Comments:
It is impolite, but we can't resist noting that Intel has also moved a tiny bit closer toward the (brilliant 1993 Lippincott Mercer) Samsung logo concept.