By Mark Hachman, ExtremeTech In a new branding strategy, AMD has begun adopting an aura of humility in a market dominated by "Intel Inside" and branding logos scattered across the surface of the PC.
AMD's new "Vision" marketing scheme de-emphasizes AMD's own brand in favor of what a customer can actually do with the machine. As a result, the OEM brand will become the PC's selling point, which AMD executives said resonates quite well with an OEM community which for years has been derided as "box builders".
AMD plans to hold a launch event in Alameda, Calif., on Thursday, where AMD and its partners will launch the "Tigris" notebook platform and its second-generation ultrathin notebook platform, formerly named "Congo". AMD dropped the Congo code name out of sensitivity to the region. AMD will also announce the Fusion Media Explorer and the Fusion Utility for Mobility, a power-management application.
AMD tipped its plans in June, when AMD's vice president of product and platform marketing, Leslie Sobon, claimed that "the [component] brands all ought to go away". Sobon, who said she is spearheading the latest effort, adopted a similar stance in describing the rollout of the Vision brand.
"I don't care if a mainstream consumer remembers the AMD brand," Sobon said. "What I care about is if they buy an AMD-based platform in a retail setting." AMD's brand will "not be in conflict" with the OEM brand, she said.
"Nobody cares what processor is in their iPhone," Sobon said.
AMD will use three brands initially: a basic "Vision" brand, "Vision Premium" and a "Vision Ultimate" brand, timed to make an appearance when Microsoft ships Windows 7 on Oct. 22. A "Vision Black" brand will roll out early next year, Sobon said. AMD will launch the branding strategy with its notebook platforms, and support desktop products early next year as well, she said. Eventually, the Vision sticker – which initially will be permanently affixed to the PC – will become a peel-off label that a consumer can remove, she said.
OEMs would "vastly prefer to build their own brands," said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with Insight64. "Every time HP or Dell shows a commercial, there's always the bum…bum-BUM-bum-BUM at the end," he said, referring to the five tones Intel uses as a brand, and that always seem to be included in OEM commercials.
The key, according to Sobon, is educating the consumer about the capabilities of the PC, not what is inside it. Part of the problem is educating the retailer and helping them upsell the consumer to a better PC, and doing so in a simple, understandable manner.
Labels with "See," "Share," and "Create" will also be used to define the PC as a basic model used for consuming content, a mid-tier one optimized for sharing it, and a high-end, content-creation machine that can author and edit video and high-end graphics. A Vision PC, for example, will be used for casual gaming and listening to music. A Vision Premium PC will be used for watching Blu-ray movies on the PC, live TV, and some light photo editing and Webcam work. Vision Ultimate PCs are designed for online gaming, music editing, recording TV shows, and "advanced" photo editing. The "Black" tier will be designed for all of that, but in HD.
According to Sobon, AMD began researching the problem about 18 months ago; since then, the company has spoken to about 4,000 consumers, she said. As Sobon noted in June, consumers have begun looking at the components found in notebooks as "tiebreakers," and not as the main determinant of a purchase. That, she said, is the price or the budget of the shopper – if the laptop meets it, the consumer will move on to brand and what tasks the notebook can accomplish.
During the 2009 holiday season, Sobon said she expects that the "sweet spot" for notebook sales will be between $550 to $750.
AMD said eight OEMs will deliver over 40 different notebook platforms using the Tigris platform, each with up to a 17.1-inch screen and DirectX 10.1 graphics. Ten OEMs plan over 20 ultrathin notebooks using AMD's next-generation ultrathin platform, with 1080p support for Blu-ray movies, and up to a 13.3-inch screen. AMD plans to tout its partnerships with Sony and its Movie Studio 9 application as well as Cyberlink's MediaShow Espresso, both of which can take advantage of the general-purpose GPU (GP-GPU) capabilities of AMD's Radeon HD graphics cards wit Stream technology.
Intel, on the other hand, has generally espoused integrated graphics as a way to cut costs. "But what Intel has doesn't hold a candle to what AMD has in graphics performance," Brookwood said.
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