Intel's new anti-Apple ad is just cringe

We have high hopes for Intel being headed up by an engineer. You know, less of the marketing nonsense of recent years and more about just getting the hardware right. We've got Alder Lake on the way, which is looking promising, and its first discrete graphics card in a long time, Alchemist, will be making an appearance sometime in the new year. There's also Sapphire Rapids for the big boys in the server rooms. All good stuff.

Which makes its latest anti-Apple advert, called "Breaking the Spell: Social Experiment", all the more sigh-inducing. I mean it's just bad. And ill-conceived. And well, you can't help wondering why someone more senior didn't step in and tell them to stop being so utterly preposterous. 

You can check it out above, but I'll warn you now, it's not pretty.

The premise is that Intel dupes a bunch of Apple fanboys and fangirls into a presentation of new hardware only to reveal that they're actually Intel PCs and laptops that are already available. 

This is probably fine in the alternate universe where Apple fans didn't know PCs exist or what they look like, but in this universe, the whole thing is just ridiculous.

There's also absolutely no mention of the software side of things, either. Which is a pretty big deal to these poor guys and gals under Apple's spell. I mean I'm no fan of Apple, not by a long shot, but even I know that the Apple ecosystem is at least a small factor in why its machines are popular. 

But also the brand itself, and what people perceive it says about you, is as important to the hardcore fans, often far more than the technology. It sure feels as though this ad is misunderstanding something fundamental to the psychology of brand loyalty.

Come on Intel, you're better than this. Attacking Apple in this way does more damage to yourself than it does to Apple. Get back to sorting out the hardware, and leave this nonsense to parody sites.