Intel commercial- Ajay Bhatt
By
Intel has recently started running a new campaign in which it remakes the company’s top researchers into ‘rock stars.’ The man they show in the spot as Ajay Bhatt is really just an actor, however there IS a real Ajay Bhatt who, while working for IBM in the early 1990’s, played a key role in inventing USB (Universal Serial Bus). Intel had originally approached Ajay to ask for permission to feature him in their latest campaign, but according to Mr. Bhatt, he never really paid attention to what they were doing until he finally saw the completed promo on TV.
I like this Intel commercial which shows Ajay Bhatt – the co-inventor of USB – with a rock-star like following.
At first glance the advertisement appears to be a humorous spot that attempts to redefines the American definition of a male hero as an Indian American computer engineer. In this 30 second ad, on one hand, the ad suggests that we should be rethinking who we see as the heroes of our generation. In slow-motion frames, people scream, men point to his image on their t-shirt, women swoon, and others take his picture with their phones and cameras as the fake Ajay Bhatt nods, winks, signs autographs. But on the other hand, this exaggerated behavior creates a comic moment because the visual of the actor playing Ajay Bhatt defies American audience expectations of who represents a rock star. I wonder has an Indian American man who looks like the stereotype of a smart computer geek really replaced Michael Jackson, and Adam Lambert in the American imagination?
Moreover, I think the ad actually doesn’t redefine the American hero but in fact reinforce the idea of Asian American men as a minority who are rarely seen as rock stars in “our world.” The message behind the humor separates Indian Americans from everyday American popular culture icons and instead confines Ajay Bhatt and anyone like him to a single image.
In the end, I feel while the advertisement promotes a different world where the professionals are Indian Americans or Asian Americans who are boxed in by the continual replaying of stereotypical definitions, the Campaign of the Sponsors of Tomorrow still attempts to turn the traditionally negative stereotypes of Asian males as smart, studious and hardworking into positives.
1 Comments
December 8th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
I agree with you Cherry. I think the concept behind this campaign is novel, in encouraging a redefinition of “success” and “fame”. However, the execution of this ad plays out as a parody due to the comedic over-exaggeration of the Intel “rockstar” and his “groupies”….so it doesn’t end up delivering on the concept.
The ad uses the incongruity theory of humor advertising, in that it presents an unexpected, surprising scene that evokes laughter because the reference is “out of place”. We don’t expect a USB inventor to be treated in this manner. It then provides a resolution when we receive multiple cues and references that the commercial is from Intel- a place that would greatly appreciate the invention of the USB. Yet, in the end, although the ad entertains with this humor, it just reinforces the often-used stereotypes of Asian Americans. As you said, Cherry, while it’s a “good feeling” ad that attempts to praise those like Mr. Bhatt it just ends up playing with the same stereotyped images we continually see associated with Asians in America.