Does AMD Advertise?
One of the things people often tell me is that AMD doesn’t advertise. They mournfully tell me: “If only you could spend the sort of money that your competitor does, then your PCs would be as well known.” If only it were that simple.
Two thoughts are applicable here.
First, I am not going to get into a spending fight on advertising because our competitor already spends − just on advertising − more than twice our entire marketing budget. So, there’s that.
But secondly, what people are really thinking or asking is: “why doesn’t AMD advertise on television in North America?”
Relative to the rest of the world, North America is a pretty unique PC market, in that a small number of retailers define the market. Because of that, television advertising is not just about a 30 second spot in the middle of your favorite TV show – campaigns need to be sustained. And that’s expensive.
But regardless of that, the main point I want to make is that I think a better use of our marketing money is to spend it on Web, Point of Sales and other promotional approaches. The most commonplace promotional is the circular that comes to you each weekend. Do you see that lovely AMD VISION logo?
Well, that is advertising.
We are also very active online, which we know is where our customers research and learn about new products. Consider all the videos you can see about our recent Guinness World Record for the highest overclocking frequency for a CPU that’s aimed at enthusiasts. And if you shop at Best Buy in Canada you can learn all about VISION Technology from AMD and what an APU-based system can do for you. We believe the Web is very influential as a tool to affect preference.
Outside of North America the market looks very different and so, accordingly, our advertising strategy reflects those markets. Here are just some of the pictures I have taken over the last year from trips around the world.
In emerging markets we experiment with new ideas and approaches. One example is this television commercial show in India. And this is a street in Taiwan.
So when people ask me if AMD advertises, the answer is: yes of course we do. But it’s targeted, and our approach varies based on the region.
Two final thoughts:
- The Taiwan street picture was actually a video I took on my smartphone which was converted into a panorama shot by vReveal’s Panorama application. You can get it here. This is just one of many applications accelerated for AMD VISION technology.
- And you can see us on TV in North America almost every week – if you watch Austin City Limits on your local PBS station. The online version frequently shows a short AMD video that runs before each episode.
Nigel Dessau is Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer for AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.
POSTED IN: Uncategorized
TAGS: advertising, television, VISION
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COMMENTS: 4
I guess I’m the only one in North America, South America and Eurasia who remembers The Future is Fusion campaign.
Only the Newspaper’s rather then AMD shareholders benefited when you could have sponsored 100 bloggers for 10 years with that money.
I own nothing but AMD-I wouldn’t buy an intel
because of their mkt practices-all my comp. are
AMD-(love em-have 5 PERSONAL comp
I say take all u can AMD and spend it on research-with the best proc-u don’t need to adv.
GO AMD
It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem, right? If your competitor pays all the computer makers to cap off your market share at 5% and you still have to spend billions on R&D, there won’t be much left over for TV ads.
There is no excuse for poor advertising. Billboards, a quick commercial, signs…you really don’t need them if your word is good enough, back by a great product.
Today you face a huge setback because you did not deliver what you promised; hurting your creditability and sales. Your OWN words were the road map you took in your recent advertising scheme. Your product followed with years of delay, the final release became an utter desktop disaster. You did not deliver what you promised or even hinted of.
I hope you learned from this mishap. Honesty, Integrity, Professional Stature can be hurt by breaking the rule of deliverance.
Thus your marketing department and their advertising scheme hurt AMD’s potential for huge profits and large gain in the market share. How’s that for your current marketing scheme? What were you thinking? Even I could have done better than your high dollar marketing guru. Fire him. Failure is not in my vocabulary and AMD should rid itself of the same. Learn by hard education and press forward. Here are 2 thoughts for positive market share and profits going forward.
Stop releasing the B2 stepping FX processor.
1. Announce to your FX desktop customer base that you will replace all B2 stepping FX processors with a B3 stepping processor with the return of the B2 failure. This will be completed through the vendor that you purchased the FX B2 stepping processor from. Upon release of the B3 stepping (hopefully compatible with Win 7 as well with issues cleared up) this will be coordinated via AMD and the vendors. Customers are responsible with shipping cost to the vendor for replacement.
2. This will return AMD as a company that has high Integrity and Professional Stature that will not be diminished by a failed product. Be grateful it isn’t with a chipset failure like your competitors had to deal with. Do this and I would guarantee that your market share will increase and your OEM partners will again have confidence in AMD like they did in days of old. Your choice.
Do nothing; you loose market share, customer base, OEM support and your Integrity.