Upgrading your graphics card is so easy even a monkey can do it
January 20, 2010 | 10:55
Companies: #amd
AMD's marketing gets criticised for lacking the clarity and presence messages of Intel's campaigns - and though what the two firms spend is vastly different (Intel's ad ad spend is a story in itself), it's somehow not surprising to find out that AMD hires Marketing Executives who openly admit that they wouldn't buy its products if they didn't work there.
What's most frustrating about AMD's marketing is that it lacks the strong, coherent story Intel usually manages to present - take, for instance, laptops. Centrino, with its colourful little butterfly logo, was great at saying "this laptop has good battery life, WiFi and decent performance." For most people, who are uninterested in CPU architecture and clockspeed, it was ideal; clear, simple and in tune with what the majority of people wanted. AMD still - over six years late - has no rival to Centrino, opting instead for a confusing jumble of AMD, Radeon and WiFi badges to tell consumers the same thing.
Which brings us onto AMD's latest marketing idea. Monkeys - yes, real, actual, live monkeys - installing graphics cards. It's true! The video is embedded after the jump.
[break]
The video's all well and good - the monkey's nimble fingers and simian enthusiasm make light work of the upgrade, so much so that Harry has started to be worried about his job - but its really there to pull in clicks to a how to article on AMD's blog.
It's a shame this piece of content isn't on the actual main AMD site though; relegated to the "Underground" blog, it's going to disappear quickly; really then, it's another solitary message, isolated from any big idea, overall story or real investment.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad AMD's posting this kind of content; its products have always been popular with enthusiasts who build their own PCs, so providing guides and tutorials on its own website seems like an obvious thing to do - it's just a shame that once again, we've got a couple of isolated clever, appealing ideas that aren't integrated into a coherent, long-term and bigger plan to make PC building a big part of AMD's overall marketing approach.
What's most frustrating about AMD's marketing is that it lacks the strong, coherent story Intel usually manages to present - take, for instance, laptops. Centrino, with its colourful little butterfly logo, was great at saying "this laptop has good battery life, WiFi and decent performance." For most people, who are uninterested in CPU architecture and clockspeed, it was ideal; clear, simple and in tune with what the majority of people wanted. AMD still - over six years late - has no rival to Centrino, opting instead for a confusing jumble of AMD, Radeon and WiFi badges to tell consumers the same thing.
Which brings us onto AMD's latest marketing idea. Monkeys - yes, real, actual, live monkeys - installing graphics cards. It's true! The video is embedded after the jump.
[break]
The video's all well and good - the monkey's nimble fingers and simian enthusiasm make light work of the upgrade, so much so that Harry has started to be worried about his job - but its really there to pull in clicks to a how to article on AMD's blog.
It's a shame this piece of content isn't on the actual main AMD site though; relegated to the "Underground" blog, it's going to disappear quickly; really then, it's another solitary message, isolated from any big idea, overall story or real investment.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad AMD's posting this kind of content; its products have always been popular with enthusiasts who build their own PCs, so providing guides and tutorials on its own website seems like an obvious thing to do - it's just a shame that once again, we've got a couple of isolated clever, appealing ideas that aren't integrated into a coherent, long-term and bigger plan to make PC building a big part of AMD's overall marketing approach.
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