Intel rebrands itself

In the latest report of branders throwing the baby out with the bath water, Intel announces a rebranding effort that will have them abandon their highly-successful tagline, "Intel Inside" in favor of "Leap Ahead" and usher in a new logo at the expense of the classic logo with the "dropped-e" that they have used for some 37 years.

Listen to this comment from the company, "This represents a significant milestone in the company's history and further signifies the company's evolution to a market-driving platform solutions company". Eric Kim, Sr. Vice President & GM of Intel's sales and marketing group was further quoted as stating, "This evolution will allow Intel to be better recognized for our contributions, establish a stronger emotional connection with our audiences, and strengthen our overall position in the marketplace."

Now, if you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know of my disdain for Business Speak (B.S.), so let me run the above statements from Intel through my magical Marketing Decoder and translate. Translation: "Blah, blah blah blah, blah".

The company, despite acknowledging that they have one of the most valuable brands in the world, is entirely revamping its brand identity.

Why?

Well, let's take a pop quiz:

If you own "one of the most valuable brands in the world" and you want to expand into areas beyond PC's to also provide the processing power in mobile device, home digital device, enterprise and technology market segments, do you:

a) Leverage the power of your brand to reinforce and explain why now it is more important than ever to make sure you have "Intel Inside" your devices

b) Acknowledge the need for a new sub-branding strategy that still capitalizes on and builds your well-established and highly successful umbrella brand

or

c) Explore ways to launch brand extensions to include market segments beyond personal computer processing chips?

This, of course, is a trick question to Intel.

If you are Intel, you go off-the-board with choice "d" and ditch your brand, squander the lead you enjoy as a market leader, and start from scratch building new brands keeping little other than your name…except now you try to make it mean something different than it already does.

As I write about in my paper describing my Top End Alignment process, it is nearly impossible to change the essence of what a brand stands for once it has been established in the minds of customers. Further, if your brand is already is one of the strongest in the world, you should do everything in your power to protect and build upon that brand equity.

So what do we call a branding strategy that walks away from its well-established equity and strategic awareness…a rebranding strategy that almost assures a start-from-scratch approach in a commodity market? Bold? Absurd? Misguided?

I call it insidious.