OMD UK and Intel took the award for Most Effective Mobile Advertising Campaign in this year’s Effective Mobile Marketing Awards for a truly original piece of work that put the TV viewer at the heart of things.

The objective behind the campaign was to re-establish Intel’s credentials among digital natives. The company, and its famous ‘Intel Inside’ tagline, might have meant to something to this audience’s parents, but the brand had lost its lustre for younger consumers – between 2011 and 2012, key brand measures such as “leads the way in breakthrough technology” had fallen from 85 per cent to 60 per cent. So the pressure was on Intel to raise awareness and improve perceptions of the brand among this exacting audience, which is tech-savvy, but somewhat cynical about advertising.

Celebrity culture
OMD and Intel knew that this Generation Y audience is obsessed with celebrity culture, personal fame, social media and their busy social lives. Above all, they love sharing and showing off with their friends, increasingly empowered by technology, and they are accustomed to all happening instantly, at the click of a finger. For this audience, speed is not just a necessity, but a way of life. So with the campaign, Intel sought to show how it could enhance their lives through the speed of its processors in a context they knew they felt passionate about.

The solution was ‘Intel Inside – LIVE’, an ad campaign in which Intel’s target audience was given the chance to star in Intel’s Christmas TV ad during the 2012 X Factor Final, with the ad created in the time it took for the programme to run from start to finish. This unlikely outcome would be achieved by fusing three key media platforms: Mobile, Social & TV.

On the evening of the X Factor final, a 10-second ad informed the audience of the speed feat that Intel was about to take on, followed by a 10-second reminder and then the ad itself. This invited the audience to get ‘inside’ by starring in the ad using the Shazam mobile app to submit a festive picture message to someone they loved at the start of show, all to be live-edited remotely and showcased in a final ad at the end of the show, making it the fastest edited and approved TV commercial shown in the UK.

The demonstration of the speed at which Intel could work was important, but so too was the innovation at the heart of the ad, in order to truly engage the audience and change their understanding of the Intel brand and what it stands for in terms of technology innovation.
The campaign generated lots of real-time buzz on social networks, with those who had submitted picture messages keen to know if they had made the final cut. For those who didn’t, a dedicated image carousel on the ITV website was updated in real time with all submitted picture messages.

Results
17,000 people engaged with the campaign, making it ITV’s most successful Shazam campaign to date. Perhaps more importantly, perception of the Intel brand improved significantly among the target audience.

The proportion of people agreeing with the statement: “Intel is powering the fastest computers on the planet” leapt from 51 per cent pre-campaign to 86 per cent post-campaign. Those agreeing with the statement: “Intel appeals to me more than other technology brands” rose from 53 per cent to 83 per cent. And the number of people saying they were “very likely” to buy products with ‘Intel Inside’ rose from 13 per cent to 66 per cent.

“We always look to encourage creative thinking in everything we do, so we’re excited to be offering consumers something new and engaging, and it’s great to be working with two pioneering brands to create what we think is a UK media first,” said Intel UK consumer marketing manager, Alistair Kemp. “Moreover, the brand is all about the creative possibilities that our technology enables, so in offering viewers the chance to get involved and spread a bit of festive cheer, hopefully we’re giving them an experience they’ll value.”