Technology advertising is fuelled by powerful technological and economic drivers.
Over the years I have worked for some fantastic clients on some of the world’s greatest technology brands. I think I understand the fundamentals.
Moore’s lawstates that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.
Less famous but just as (if not more), relevant is Kyder’s law that states for the same unit cost, storage capacity doubles every 13 months, which equates to a 1000 increase over a ten-year period. Kryder’s law has held true since 1964.
Put it another way, this is a picture of my 1 GB hard drive ‘Giggsy’ that I brought in 1994 and it cost me over £1000. Now we give away 1GB sticks with credentials presentations on because they are cheaper than chips (and now Giggsy’s most useful role is as a book end).
This is an advert from the early 1980s, $3,695 for a 10 megabyte hard disc system. In no other category such as FMCG, Financial, Automotive, Luxury have the prices for the same basic product, dropped so dramatically.
Even with low cost air travel and £1 flights, the price differential between then and now does not remotely bare comparison.
Every time we consider purchasing new technology, we are getting much more for much less. Based on Kryders law, by 2015 your standard iPod will be able to hold all the commercial music ever digitized and by 2019, 85 years of continuous video. In effect a whole lifetime recorded in the size of a matchbox.
But the daddy of this cause and effect is Moore’s law and that has served as a goal for the whole technology industry. There is some debate about the ultimate limits of the law, but, up and till now it has worked as a self fulfilling prophesy, around which not only campaigns but whole technology brands can be built.
Sometimes technology campaigns are iconic.
Mostly, campaigns are more functional, smaller, faster, better.
Intel campaign from 2006, where more computing power results in ‘more you’.
I must confess I worked on the Intel ‘Multiply’ Campaign in 2006 when our team rebuilt Intel.com in just a few short summer months and we digitally ‘integrated the big idea’. At the time I did question using the medium of dance to explain the benefits of multi-core processing technology, but that is not why I am referencing it now.
The reason for bringing it up is that I was walking around PC World at the weekend trying too help my sister find the right laptop, and, having worked on Intel for many years, I thought I knew and understood Intel’s processor brands very well, but I had completely lost touch.
Anyway I thought I had better check out the new Intel processors designed to reduce costs and increase productivity.
Whilst I know enough to always trust Intel’s processors I felt that the language of technology advertising for Intel and for most technology brands still boils down to power, performance and price.
Whilst power, performance and price are important it made me think of the tail fin on American cars in the 1950s.
The inventor of the tail fin was Harley Earl from General Motors. He said that the tailfin gave customers an extra receipt for their money in the form of visible prestige marking an expensive car.
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