Brands for the Burning: Intel and Motorola

Abstract

The concept of branding has always held a special allure for marketers in all industries, and high tech has by no means proved immune to its siren call. Throughout the 1990s, numerous articles, seminars, books, gurus, and Web sites all proclaimed the “magic of brands.” An unending supply of PowerPoint presentations placed before the High Priests of Investment Wealth, the venture capitalists (VCs), fervently declared their fealty to the brand in different ways, some promising to “establish brands,” others to “drive brands to the market,” and yet others to create “universal brands.” The Internet frenzy led to the brand’s ultimate apotheosis in the late ‘80s as millions of innocent dollars were burnt on the altars of sock puppets, consumed in the name of just-in-time snacks for slackers too busy to shop for themselves, and sacrificed in uncounted numbers at America’s supreme religious rite of marketing, the Super Bowl.