(10) Accidental advertising campaigns

Intel, the world's leading chip-maker, got into the business of building global brands almost by accident.

For Intel, the lights went on in 1989. An advertising campaign aimed at getting computer manufacturers to change to its latest processor, the 386, had the surprising side effect of persuading consumers to ask for 386-based computers.

"At the time," says Dennis Carter, Intel vice-president and director of marketing, "I didn't really know what a brand was. But it became evident that we had created a brand and that it made a difference in consumers' purchase plans."

The next step was to brand not merely one product but the whole range, using the now-familiar "Intel inside" logo. Intel launched the campaign in 1991 with its first "cooperative advertising" programme, offering to share the costs of advertising with computer manufacturers that used Intel chips.

Soon after came the first "Intel inside" TV commercial - a journey through the inside of a personal computer, ending up at the micro­processor with Intel's logo. It had become the first semiconductor company to sell its product to consumers as though it were a new cola.

Intel initially tailored its advertising to different markets. In Japan, for example, the logo read "Intel in it" but was aban­doned when the company found the "Intel inside" brand was better recognised because of information from the US. "This really drove home the idea that the PC market is the same everywhere in the world," says Mr Carter.

Since then, its logo has appeared in more than $3.4 billion (£2.1 billion) worth of advertising - including spending by PC manufacturers, according to Intel.

From the Financial Times

(11) Winning word-of-mouth approval: teenager marketing

Bethan Hutton on how companies stay one step ahead of Japan's materialistic youth

The natural habitat of Japanese teenagers is a small area of central Tokyo between Shibuya and Harajuku stations which is full of boutiques and music shops. At weekends, teenagers from the city and the surrounding provinces go there to spot the latest street fashions.

The area is also a magnet for anyone researching or selling to the teenage market: fashion and cosmetics companies, record producers, editors of young fashion magazines, soft drink and snack promoters, and makers of games and gadgets.

One such company was Bandai, the toy company responsible for Tamagotchi, the egg-shaped, pocket-sized virtual pet which swept the world in the late 1990s. Tamagotchi's first public appear­ance was in a test marketing exercise on the streets of Shibuya.

The schoolgirls who saw it were so impressed they told all their friends, and the first few batches of Tamagotchi to hit the shops sold out immediately. Such is the power of 'kuchikomi', or word of mouth.

Advertisers everywhere know that personal recommendation carries great weight. Normally, word-of-mouth promotion is free, but impossible to arrange. In Japan, it can be arranged - at a price.

There are agencies with hundreds of teenagers on their books who receive new products and tell their friends about them; others are paid to queue up for the launch of a new product or opening of a new store, creating an artificial 'buzz' about it.

Halfway between Shibuya and Harajuku is the office of Hiroaki Morita, who set up Teens Network Ship on leaving school nine years ago. The agency is the longest-established specialist in the teenage market, and often uses informal, kuchikomi-style market­ing methods. It has a register of 2,000 senior high school pupils in the Tokyo area, and is now expanding nationally.

As Mr Morita describes it, the logic is simple: selected teenagers are given information or samples of a new product. Feeling superior for knowing about something ahead of the crowd, they tell on average 50 of their friends and classmates about their 'discovery', so that with a core group of 1,000, word can spread to 50,000 or more.

Information spreads more rapidly among the 15 to 18 age group than at any other life stage, Mr Morita says. For the three years at senior high school, they spend eight hours a day with the same 50 classmates, creating an exceptionally tight social network.

From the Financial Times