Surfing through online videos you might bump into this one: A kid hanging a PC from a hanger, tied to a long rope on his windowsill. Lightning strikes and blows it up. Don’t be surprised—it’s just a kid being creative in the Intel viral marketing campaign. The campaign runs ‘101 ways to get rid of your old PC—so your mom or boss can buy you a new one with core 2 duo.’ This is one of Intel’s marketing strategies for the core 2 duo processor.

In tune with its online marketing program, it foresees a separate website for Intel India, grabbing attention with Intel advertisements leading them to localized content. While spreading the marketing tentacles offline, Intel is closely following the 4Ps of marketing–Product, Price, Place (distribution) and Promotion.

Place: Making Inroads
“Unique to India is the Place—the distribution channels. And over the years we have developed dealer consistency establishing a unique breadth in the market,” says John McClure, Director–Marketing and Operations for Intel, South Asia. The fragmented Indian market compels companies to go through channel partners to make inroads. With over 3000 active channel partners, Intel has penetrated more cities than competitors. They constantly work with channel partners by giving them good products and increase their margins.

Intel acts as a partner with dealers giving them cover for their marketing and advertising campaigns. They conduct training sessions for these dealers twice a year to reduce the dealers’ cost of staff training. The ‘Genuine Intel Dealer’ (GID) certificate provided at the end of the trainings acts as an accreditation. “Competitors do it only when they have money. We are consistent with our products and trainings,” informs McClure. Tie-ups with OEMs like LG, Zenith, Lenovo, HCL and Wipro Technologies to sell their products—helped Intel reach a larger market. Companies in turn develop their own brand value and get support with their sales and marketing programs from Intel.

Products: Pushing The Envelope