Applied Materials

Applied Materials
Information for Everyone

A small share of voice needs a big idea.

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Tokyo. Photo: RJ Muna

Even though Applied Materials had been laboring for over 30 years at building a marquee name in the semiconductor industry, less than half of the retail investment market had heard of them. Just 3% named Applied unaided when asked which tech companies they would consider investing in. Yet Applied makes the systems used to produce virtually every new microchip in the world.

During the worst downturn in the industry’s history, we were tasked with bringing that astonishing value into sharp relief.

The immediate, daunting challenge was to sell a conservative board of directors on a wildly ambitious global broadcast advertising program.

We opened our pitch in the CEO’s bunker-like conference room in Santa Clara with a short film narrated by Hollywood legend Martin Sheen. I felt sure the board members would collectively cheer and bang their approval on the polished mahogany. Instead, the Chairman politely thanked us for our time and immediately moved on to the next item on the agenda. Cool as you like.

Several fingernail-biting weeks later, we were given the brief of a lifetime:

"Make Applied Materials famous."

David N.K. Wang, Executive Vice President

How do you advertise a company whose systems are used to build virtually every new microchip made in the world without evoking Orwellian overtones or corporate chest-beating? Our answer was to memorably express the truth about the sheer global impact of chips and dramatize how they power everything, everywhere. All we had to do was shoot it.

SPAIN: Securing Porsche for Applied’s campaign gave us the ultimate proving ground for how chips were rewriting the limits of mechanical performance. But the 996 Turbos shipped from Stuttgart for our shoot were locked at the border due to a Foot-and-Mouth disease crisis. Meanwhile, storms rolled in through the Gulf of Cádiz, threatening to put our highly anticipated helicopter shots out of reach.

While I stared at mounting overage bills and drank Rioja in Ronda, our Executive Producer deployed a wily London-based fixer. The cars cleared customs. The Guardia Civil extended the Sierra de Grazalema road closure. And the clouds parted as Sammy Hagar's breakout vocal on "Space Station #5" accompanied aerial footage of Bobby Unser Jr. barreling through a mountain pass.

JAPAN: I hadn’t slept in Spain. A brief stop in London to recoup, then straight to Tokyo. We had arranged to shoot at the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing, the Shibuya Scramble — a living emblem of the connected world microchips had made possible, and a location so tightly controlled by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police that even Hollywood productions routinely build replica sets rather than attempt to film there directly. The location was contextually vital — Applied was doing 40 percent of its business in Japan and we couldn't afford a single slip-up.

Naturally, things went sideways. The police inexplicably revoked our permit. Our tough Australian production manager gave it to me straight: the only way to get our permit reinstated would involve sitting down with the Yakuza. Fortunately, the Japanese have always valued absolute discretion in delicate business matters, and the story behind our eleventh-hour reprieve will remain a trade secret. What primetime audiences saw was a film accompanied by an enigmatic track sung in Japanese by Chihiro Onitsuka. A weekly online poll conducted by Advertising Age ultimately declared it "the best spot in America."

CHINA: For the grand finale, we set cutting-edge silicon technology against thousands of years of human engineering. The assignment: become the first agency in history to shoot a commercial along the Great Wall and inside Peking’s Forbidden City — a compound so fiercely guarded that even major Chinese productions were forced to build replica sets elsewhere. Our secret weapon was a decades-old friendship between Applied CEO Jim Morgan and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, forged when Zemin was a young engineer visiting Silicon Valley.

The highest level of diplomacy cleared the path, but executing on the ground required the elite tradecraft of veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Charles Wang to navigate the labyrinth of state security. Throughout the production, our crew was shadowed by somber-looking members of the CCP. Thankfully, all I suffered on this adventure was a nasty bout of dysentery and overwhelming pride.

We carried that same nothing-is-impossible brief into print and outdoor photography in Andalusia, Tokyo, Mumbai, New York, and San Francisco.

The campaign premiered in Hong Kong at the FORTUNE Global Forum, where President Jiang Zemin delivered the opening keynote to the world’s top CEOs.

Facing a volatile market, CEO Jim Morgan took the campaign’s message to the industry and press. Applied Materials wasn’t just selling machines; it was helping democratize the digital age. And “Information for Everyone” made the brand famous for it.

Performance: Public recognition and ad interest completely outstripped the heavily funded campaigns of Intel, IBM, and Cisco.
Fame: NASDAQ’s national “Listed on NASDAQ” campaign named Applied, alongside Microsoft, Costco, and Starbucks, as one of the companies and stories that were “embodiments of the American dream fulfilled” — cultural proof that a name few investors could once place had become part of the story America told about its own future.
Market Value: The year before we began work, Applied Materials’ stock reached a 52-week low of $26.59. By making its role easier to understand, remember, and value, the “Information for Everyone” idea endured beyond the advertising. It was formally codified in Applied Materials’ SEC filings and annual reports, and later became the title of the official book celebrating the company’s 35-year history. Over time, Applied became a far more widely recognized company, and its share price rose substantially — reaching an all-time high of $723 on June 30, 2026, roughly 27 times that earlier low.

Source: Hall & Partners. Ad Age. Wall Street Journal. AMAT stock data: Nasdaq / Yahoo Finance, July 2026.

Mark Whitty joined Tom Hayes on CNBC to discuss the campaign.

A NASDAQ Visionary.

"Mark Whitty possesses a rare combination of attributes for the advertising industry: he has high standards of excellence and he is a good budget manager. He provided standout, award-winning work for me at Applied Materials on a $50 million global advertising and branding campaign."