Most of us don’t normally care about ads. They come, they go, and most of the time they’re forgettable. Until one ad campaign comes along and for whatever it just sticks. Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign is probably the best known ad campaigns in tech with “There’s an app for that” probably a very close second. The only other one that can even come close is “Dude, you’re getting a Dell” and even then, that’s pushing it. In fact, the “Get a Mac” ads were so successful that Microsoft responded with the “I’m a PC” campaign. Imagine that. Microsoft had to defend against the Mac in 2008. In fact, I’ve seen so few ads for Microsoft products, Xbox aside, in my entire life that I barely remembered these. Yes, these simple ads for the Mac were that effective. And here we are yet again with someone else trying to recreate that magic. This time it’s Intel with their “Go PC Justin Gets Real” campaign and, once again, it’s pretty bad.
While Apple is important to this story, this story isn’t really about Apple. But let’s start with Apple and a potted history of their relationship with Intel. About 15 years ago Windows and Intel were dominant in the desktop space. When it was finally decided in 2006 that the Power PC architecture wasn’t going to cut it anymore Apple made the switch to Intel processors. The intersting part about this is that even though the announcement itself was a big deal, and Apple did run exactly 1 ad saying Macs now had Intel processors. That was it. Never in the entire “Get a Mac” campaign did apple mention the fact that Intel chips were in Macs. At most they made mention of some of the benefits of them being there, such as being able to bootcamp Windows onto your Mac, but they never mentioned Intel directly. Apple also managed to keep Intel’s famous stickers off of Macs. When asked why they wouldn’t be sporting the stickers Jobs responds as only he could:
“What can I say? We like our own stickers better.”
Contrast this with today’s iPhone ads. At the end of every ad or somewhere on every billboard is a carrier logo. Apple still controls the advertising but the carriers get to put their version of an Intel sticker on the ad.
However Steve does follow up with a nugget of truth:
Don’t get me wrong. We love working with Intel. We’re very proud to ship Intel products in Macs. I mean, they are screamers. And combined with our operating system, we’ve really tuned them well together, so we’re really proud of that. It’s just that everyone knows we’re using Intel processors, and so I think putting a lot of stickers on the box is just redundant. We’d rather tell them about the product inside the box, and they know it’s got an Intel processor.
What Jobs says is to an extent true. Most Mac users aren’t going to care what’s in their Mac. Sure, Intel is well known and I’m sure that was a big boost, but I’d argue that the average Mac user doesn’t care what chip is in their Mac so long as its fast.1 Most Mac users araen’t buying Macs because of the brand of chip in them, they’re buying Macs because they’re Macs.2 I’d say that was true in 2006 (and Steve knew it) and it’s true in 2021 as Apple transitions to it’s own silicon. I’m sure at the time Apple was happy to cash in on the Intel name hoping it would push people on the fence to buy a new Mac. Intel was probably happy to simply sell more chips and now, essentially, dominate everything. AMD was absolutely a competitor back then, but definitely not at the level they are today. The irony here is that M1 Macs have been out for a few months now and I still havn’t seen a single ad for them. In fact, I cant even remember ever seeing an ad for AMD. Ever.
Intel’s ads start with Justin Long, previously our Mac, standing on a white background and introducing himself as if he’s about to rehash his old job and cuts himself short. He then goes on to say he’s “just a real person, doing a real comparison.” This is a marketing department’s bad attempt at parody and a media department that can’t even photoshop things right. Seriously, look at Justin’s thumbs.
Right now Intel is fighting a war on two fronts, which is never a good thing. First it’s currently having issues in the consumer space where it’s being challenged by Apple and the M1 chip. The M1 is beating Intel not just in pure clock speed but also in two things that are incredibly important in low to midrange computers5, like the ones shown in the ads: thermals and power draw. For a direct comparison take a look at this comparison between not just the M1 chip currently but the older Intel Mac Minis. I’m writing this on the 2018 Mac Mini shown in the chart. The M1 can run with less power draw than my previous 2011 Mac Mini with a dual core 2.3 GHz Core i5 but give me the the same if not more power than my 2018 i7. And then theres the thermals. These are the reasons why Apple left them. From day 1 I’ve noticed this 2018 Mac runs way hotter than my 2011. One of the things that made me fall in love with Macs was their utter silence. I’ve heard the fan in the 2018 Mac more times than I think I heard the one in my 2011 Mac’s entire life span. Even though the only thing I truly worry about are the thermals on my Mini, this matters way more when looking at laptops. More power draw means less battery life and hotter laptops. Hotter laptops mean fans kick up and sound like jet engines. While none of this is important enough for me to run out and replace my Mini. However if I had to replace my 2013 Macbook Air sporting a 1.3 GHz i5 with a current model, Intel or M1, Which one do you think it would just make more sense to go with? Certainly not Intel. Other than low hanging fruit, no pun intended, what really is the point in going at Apple? Apple is a subset of a market and M1 is barely a percentage of that market on top of it. This is Intel begging people who may not know better not to switch to M1. It’s defensive and for Intel, who is supposed to the best, it’s not a good look.
The second and arguably more important fight that Intel is in is on the PC enthusiast side of things where they are definitely losing to AMD right now. AMD isn’t exactly eating Intel’s lunch but they’re coming damn close. The balance lately has been that AMD was ahead in gaming but Intel still owned productivity. That gap is shrinking buy the day. Most of us enthusiasts could care less about power draw. Throw a 600 or 700 watt PSU down and be done with it. Most of us are gamers so we understand that powering all this hardware takes, well, power. Just keep it within reason. There is no need for a chip to draw excessive amounts of power for extended periods. That’s a problem. Lower draw in this space is a feature, not a requirement. We do however care about thermals. Our CPU needs to be cool enough that under load, or especially when gaming, it won’t down clock or burn up. Otherwise, we want straight, raw performance. For a while now AMD is been beating Intel there too. AMD has a higher instruction per clock, a smaller nanometer process, and as a result is able to do more with less cores. This to me seems like the more important fight. Let Microsoft continue to battle it out vs Apple. Have that fight via software. Intel needs to fight it’s fight against AMD for us enthusiasts. Right now Intel is barely keeping up. The initial reviews I’ve seen from sites that have been able to get 11th gen Intel chips early at retail (enabling them to go around the NDA from Intel) are not good. As in “this is worse than 10th gen” not good. As enthusiasts, we want raw power and right now AMD is the one giving it to us. That’s just talking about PC gaming. Look at the previous gen consoles: the Xbox One and Playstation 4? AMD chips. Xbox Series S|X and Playstation 5? AMD chips. AMD is clearly beating Intel in the gaming space. Intel still has a few saving graces though. The stability of an Intel system still can’t be beat. It’s quite literally the only reason I’d still consider an Intel chip over an AMD chip if I were buying today. Usually this is a no brainer and I’m happy to pay the “Intel tax” for it. Just know that given price to performance, that would be a very deep consideration. The only other thing it’s really got is brand recognition. A general consumer looking to buy a PC probably doesn’t know who AMD is. An IT department at a multi billion dollar cooperation probably isn’t going to mass order a bunch of AMD laptops either, at least not without those same considerations and a few test runs. However, if AMD can show they have the same stability as Intel and get their branding together they can easily put Intel in a very dire position. A cursory glance at Dell’s website shows they don’t even have to compete on price.
The problem with these ads is that this is essentially Intel screaming that they’re in trouble. Intel should be the market leader, and name recognition alone will only carry them so far. They have the brand recognition that only a few companies in tech have and that so many other companies would kill for. The Pentium jingle is forever ingrained in my memory. Intel Inside became a meme back in ancient times. When Apple partnered with Intel it was such a great moment since now it at least gave the Mac that extra bit of street cred it seemed to have been lacking because it wasn’t using an Intel chip. To make a go at Apple is incredibly short sighted. Naming Apple in these ads says “we are no longer the market leader”. Coke never mentions Pepsi. Microsoft rarely, if ever, mentions Apple. Saying that Intel is threatened by M1 is an understatement. They’re petrified of it. It’s everything a desktop class Intel chip is supposed to be with the power efficiency of a cell phone chip. What’s entirely wrong with this scenario is that Intel thinks they’re still Coke when in reality they’re Pepsi.
When incoming CEO Pat Gelsinger attended an all hands meeting for the company in mid January he said:
We have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino” makes, Gelsinger reportedly told Intel employees. “We have to be that good, in the future.”
I took this as a rile the troops kind of moment. M1 Macs were beginning to be released and they were showing impressive numbers. So yeah, rile your troops. It’s what you do. Intel, like Apple, is at it’s best when it sees itself as the underdog. That scrappy “our stuff is the best and we’re going to prove it to you” mentality is where Intel really shines. That is when Intel really is the Intel that gave us the x86 architecture that started with the 8086 in 1978 and is still used today. The Intel that bec ame a household name. There is a marketing message here for Intel but these ads aren’t it. What Intel needs to do is take a step back and examine it’s core values. Especially now, with a key executive and former engineer returning to the company. It’s a very “Steve returns to Apple” kind of moment. Steve took a step back to simplify the product line and get it right. By doing so he rebuilt confidence in the Mac. While doing so he reiterated what Apple’s core values were as a company. Simplifying the product line and rebuilding confidence in their chips is what Intel needs focus on. Let your values guide you. I say this because I want Intel to succeed. I need a healthy, competitive CPU market that fosters innovation and keeps prices reasonable. What does that look like for Intel? I don’t know. All I know is that I want to feel the same way about buying an Intel chip that I do about buying an iPhone or a Mac: good.
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The exceptions to this might be developers or professionals in any kind of media. The faster things render in final cut or Adobe stuff or compile in Xcode, the faster the work gets done. Literally. So yeah, to these people, specs, like Ghz, matter. ↩
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And I can tell you from personal experience that when I bought my first Mac in 2011, the chip inside didn’t matter. I was buying a Mac simply because it was a Mac. Not because it had an Intel chip. That was the last thing on my mind. ↩
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Yes, iPad OS is essentially MacOS at the kernel level but that’s not this conversation. Its not the full desktop version of MacOS. ↩
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iPads and iPhones have the secure enclave as part of Apple’s A series SoC. Mac laptops have the T series chip that controls the Touch Bar on certain MAc laptops. I fully believe this was a workaround for security because they were using Intel chips. Now that they have full control of the hardware stack I totally expect them to drop Face ID on Macs in the next year or so. They may even have the designs ready and just nede to time to fully figure out the manufacturing process. ↩
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I’m excluding things like gaming laptops here. I consider those high end and above. ↩
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