Intel is making it easier for partners to create and pay for marketing campaigns—with market development fund credits rather than out-of-pocket spending—in a revamped program that includes providing partners with easy access to Google advertising.
The chip giant announced the changes, called the Virtual Marketing Storefront, at its Intel Solutions Summit in Paris on April 25.
The Google piece of the deal gives partners access to a Google suite of advertising tools, allowing them to quickly and easily create marketing campaigns with Google search and display ads, and then track the success of various campaigns. That way partners can fine-tune campaigns to make them more effective.
"It's a natural thing for Google and Intel to make life better for our mutual partners," said Michael Hoefflinger, Intel's general manager of global partner marketing. "It's a natural collaboration for the two of us to bring along a co-op program that is built to be accessed over the Internet."
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The Google deal is part of a bigger advertising and marketing solution that Intel is packaging as a Web site for Intel partners. The site is designed to give these businesses a place where they can get access to order marketing and advertising collateral, market research, and a suite of tools for Google advertising and advertising analytics. The new site will be available starting next week.
Intel officials said that previously, partners had to develop all their own marketing and advertising programs and pay for them out-of-pocket, then submit the costs for reimbursement from their market development funds. This new program, which the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker is calling an extension of its Intel Inside campaign, allows partners to purchase directly from the Web store using market development fund credits, never incurring out-of-pocket expenses.
"The way Intel partners did things before challenged their skill sets and challenged the amount of time small businesses had to devote to such activities," Hoefflinger said. "We think this is a faster and easier way for partners to go to market, and it could also be a more effective way to go to market."
Hoefflinger said Intel also expects the new program to result in more local advertising for both partners, who will find the process simplified, and for Intel, which is looking to spread its Intel Inside message in this new way.
Intel has performed a very limited pilot of the program over the last year.
Hoefflinger said that partners in the United States will continue to have a choice between spending their market development funds through the storefront or submitting claims for reimbursement.
Channel News and Analysis 
