It is an interesting time for Intel. The world's leading chipmaker recently unveiled a new brand, swapping 'Intel inside' for 'Leap ahead'. As the world's fifth most valuable brand, the relaunch drew a lot of attention; after 37 years, Intel was replacing its logo and making a concerted bid to build its identity around the digital entertainment space.
In Asia, which now accounts for 25 per cent of Intel's global business, the company's marketing now falls under the overview of regional director of marketing, Gary Willihnganz, who assumed the newly-created role last year. After previously heading up Intel's reseller channels organisation in Asia-Pacific, Willihnganz believes the new regional marketing capability reflects the need to offer more support to Intel's local market operations. "It's recognition for us -- before, we had different sales forces with their marketing arms," explains Willihnganz. "So we brought the marketing arms together, to empower all our country managers."
Willihnganz joined Intel in 1994, in the technical manufacturing group, before spending four years as the CPU product manager in the microprocessor marketing and business planning group. His US experience was rounded out with a stint as director of sales for the North America computer sales group before he relocated to Singapore. It is this combination of operational and sales backgrounds that, he believes, prepares him ideally for the marketing role.
"It really helps bring the two areas of marketing together," he says. "Brand generation and demand generation. Traditionally, we've kept these separate, but now they are being brought together."
The fundamental global shift, however, is the one Intel is attempting to make from a components provider to a platform provider. It underpins the new brand, and the various announcements of new platforms -- which include Viiv, the Centrino mobile platform, and Core Duo. "Consumers want rich content and they need a platform to watch that content. Our partnerships and alliances help that content to be brought to the platforms," notes Willihnganz, who says the new brand must drive growth in Asia's emerging markets. It is the SME segment that he is eyeing in particular, referring to it as "obviously, a very promising piece of the Asia-Pacific strategy".
To better target SMEs, Intel has rolled out a series of initiatives, including business seminars and the 'Built in' campaign -- which selects businesses in Asia, kits them out with Intel technology, and then visits them six months later for customer testimonials. "We've never really targeted that segment with marketing before," explains Willihnganz. "The opportunity we've taken is to demonstrate how technology use can be really instrumental in building competitiveness."
The campaign also marks Intel's increasing eagerness for more localised communications in the region. As Willihnganz notes, "local market demand generation activities" now take up a significant portion of Intel's marketing budgets. "We're moving towards a strategy where worldwide provides a framework, and regional provides content," he says.
Willihnganz has seen some remarkable changes during his 12 years in the business, not least in how consumers interact and engage with digital content. For Intel, too, the past decade has seen a real transformation in its offering to consumers. "When I joined Intel in the early '90s, it was about productivity," he points out. "The strategy thereafter was recognising what people could do with technology. Through this time period, Intel has consistently focused on what people want to use technology for."
