Intel Trades in 'Intel Inside'

Dan Nystedt, IDG News Service

TAIPEI-- After many years of service as a tool to teach consumers what brand of chip to ask for inside a personal computer, Intel has decided to retire the old "Intel Inside" campaign. The new logo, and a tagline that includes the phrase "Leap ahead," will be formally announced on January 3.

As part of a major rebranding effort, the 37-year old Intel logo--with its name in lowercase letters and a dropped or lowered "e," 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 long encircled the "Intel Inside" phrase.

"We're aligning our brand strategy with our platform strategy," says 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 broadened its focus to entire platforms--not just the microprocessor but also 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 this change.

"As we evolve as a company, it makes sense to evolve our brand," says Calder.

Consumer Teacher

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 the graphics chip. Dropping it is a major step.

"It was a great campaign, and it really put us on the map with consumers," says 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--so you might see "intel Pentium M inside," for example.

The new tagline, "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, says Calder.

Change Long in the Works

Intel has been mulling the logo change for a few years, Calder says, 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 the Intel Communications Group.

The company spent much of 2005 working on the new logo, Calder says, but he wouldn't say how much the rebranding effort is costing the world's largest chip maker.