Intel Inside ad agency loses Intel consumer business

Intel has withdrawn its consumer advertising business from Salt Lake City, Utah-based Euro RSCG DSW Partners, the company that devised the abyssmal 'dancing bunnies' ads and popularised the 'Intel Inside' slogan. Responsibility for promoting the Great Satan of chips to the great unwashed will now go to long-winded New York agency Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG. DSW will continue handling Intel's Internet and business-to-business advertising. That suggests the company wasn't unhappy with DSW's work. The fact that Messner is a $100 million organisation employing 800 staff (compared to $28 million and 190 people at DSW) suggests Intel reckons it time to take its consumer advertising into the big league. DSW was disappointed by Stan's move, but understood it, said company partner and manager of day-to-day operations, John Dahlin, quoted in

. "If you look at it from the client's point of view, this is a necessary step," he said. He admitted the loss of revenue resulting from Intel's action was "significant", but he refused to comment on the exact figure. According to Dahlin, the move necessitated the loss of 11 jobs from DSW's Salt Lake office and 12 more from its San Francisco operation. Ironically, though, DSW and Messner are both subsidiaries of Euro RSCG -- it owns 70 per cent of DSW. Ad agencies are notoriously resistant to taking on old campaigns with new clients, but given this link between Messner and DSW, we may not have seen the last of the bunnies after all. Damn. ®