Where was I?

Although I'm an EE and spent part of my life working as an engineer, sales rep and marketer, in 1974 I took a shot at the advertising biz. It seemed like it would be fun. Regis McKenna, with a nudge from his client Ed Gelbach at Intel, offered me a job working on the Intel account and on Apple Computer after a young Steve Jobs decided we should be Apple's first ad agency.

In those days Regis and his creative team were doing eye-catching, leadership advertising, and Intel was still primarily in the memory biz and living in mortal fear of Mostek. We advertised the 4004 and, later, 8080 microprocessors. Every Intel ad carried the tag line "Intel delivers"

under the logo. The tag line was the contribution of Al Young at Bonfield Associates, Intel's first ad agency.

"Intel delivers" was a brand promise-Intel delivers great products and technology, world-class manufacturing, support and all the good stuff customers want. But then along came an uptick in demand at a time when there was a glitch in the supply process. Everybody was on allocation and customers were getting miffed. Suddenly "Intel delivers" became an empty promise.

It all came to a head when Andy Grove started getting copies of Intel ads that had been torn out of newspapers and magazines with the tag line modified to read: "Intel delivers if you're lucky," "Intel never

delivers" or "If Intel delivers, it's a miracle." That was enough for Andy. He called Regis and demanded the brand promise be removed from all advertising.

Nowadays Intel points to its worldwide volume manufacturing muscle as a source of its competitive advantage. But don't expect "Intel delivers" to replace "Intel inside" anytime soon.

When Frank isn't living in the past he can be reached at fburge@cmp.com.