Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices is rethinking its marketing strategy to put less emphasis on specifications. It says most customers are more interested in what their machine can do, rather than what’s inside.

The ‘VISION’ concept will require computer manufacturers to come on board with the marketing scheme. Those that agree to follow AMD’s strategy will brand computers using the chips as either VISION Basic, VISION Premium or VISION Ultimate.  (The Basic edition may simply be called ‘VISION’ to avoid negative connotations.)

That’s in comparison to the current system by which AMD lists individual specifications and classifies hardware into more than 20 different categories.

The gist of the marketing campaign is that Basic is general computer use including Internet browsing, Premium is for machines better suited to light gaming and HD video, while Ultimate is for hardcore gaming and video editing. There are reports that a VISION Black category will be added later for seriously high-end hardware.

It appears to be a smart marketing strategy: it simplifies things for the casual buyer, while those who care about the actual specs of components will likely be willing to spend the time delving beyond the advertising to get the numbers. It also means that AMD may get its new brand name included in mainstream advertising and gets to push the message that some of its chips are particularly suited to demanding computer processes.

There are some potential drawbacks, though. For one thing, the sheer number of possible combinations of components and software in a machine mean there could be dispute about which category any particular set-up falls in to. There may also be problems in so explicitly labeling a machine as suitable for advanced gaming.

The basic/premium/ultimate categories could also be troublesome: it’s not hard to imagine buyers getting confused between the AMD categories and the different editions of Windows.

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Entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 11:17 am under Advertising, Opinion.

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