In January of this year, Intel announced that its CEO at the time, Bob Swan, would be stepping down. The company was on shaky ground, for a variety of reasons, and a shakeup at the top was seen as a way to get things back on a right path. That probably hasn’t happened quite yet, but that isn’t stopping the company from leaning into some anti-Apple marketing.
Of course, these types of ads aren’t new for companies that aren’t Apple. Bashing Apple is a known practice, especially as companies try to drum up their own business. Samsung is certainly no stranger to the effort. Whether or not it will actually work for Intel remains to be seen.
Until then, Intel plans on leaning into its latest effort to try and get folks to consider its chips –inside a range of other companies’ computers– instead of Apple’s newest M1 processor. It goes beyond that, with Intel trying hard to find negatives in Apple’s hardware design, the (admittedly much-maligned) Touch Bar, external monitor support, and much more.
Intel even swayed actor Justin Long to “switch sides“, with the “I’m a Mac” star now repping Intel’s wares instead of Apple’s. Like what you can see just above.
Since launching those videos, Intel has only gone further down the rabbit hole. The company has launched tweets going full “PC vs Mac”, and now the company has a website dedicated to the effort. On that site, it’s exactly what you’d expect with Intel lambasting Apple for a variety of things it believes are mistakes, and promoting Intel chips and a diverse lineup of computers to choose from.
It’s all very well-trodden ground and nothing new. Intel does make some bold claims, though. For instance, the company says right from the jump that benchmarks for Apple’s M1 processor don’t translate to “real-world usage”. Intel goes on to say that the PC market simply offers more choice, with full touch screens on its computers, 2-in-1 device form factors, “limitless creation applications”, and more.
From the site:
In the real-world, a PC with an 11th Gen Intel® Core™ mobile processor offers users more and we’ve got real research and test results that prove it. Many Apple M1 claims don’t translate to real-world usage and appear questionable. When compared to a PC with the 11th Gen Intel® Core™ mobile processor, the M1 MacBook features just don’t stack up.
Intel isn’t slowing down on this anti-Apple effort, which only kind of makes sense. Apple’s probably not going to license out the M-series processor to other companies, after all. And fans of the PC marketplace, and Windows in general, probably aren’t going to suddenly jump ship because of the M-series processor, either. (Though, some certainly might!) All-in-all, Intel’s probably screaming into an echo chamber at this point.
But, what do you think? Is Intel doing itself any favors with the marketing push?