If Vodafone’s Zoozoo ads suprised you for their decision to use real people instead of animated characters, Intel recently launched ad comes as more surprise.

Intel, in order to gain market share/improve brand perception started a worldwide campaign that had a tagline“Our rock stars are different from your rock stars.”

The irony? Well, Ajay Bhatt (Chief Platform Architect at Intel, and co-creator of the USB port) featured in the ad is actually a fake Ajay Bhatt (i.e. an actor) who performs the act!

Intel’s ads, dubbed “Sponsors of Tomorrow,” is the biggest marketing campaign in three years and revolves around positioning Intel as a research firm.

But why a fake Ajay Bhatt?

“Intel said it hopes eventually to have its employees play themselves in its ads, but for the first round wanted actors with the comic timing, experience — and time — to play the part.

In the ad, mustachioed, elegantly coifed actor Sunil Narkar plays Bhatt, who is cleanshaven and has a spare hairstyle. And the commercial’s futuristic, glassy workplace looks nothing like Intel’s fabric cubicle farms in Washington County.” – source, via

AMD – Are you going to use this to your benefit?