Re: ROCHESTER PUSHES BACK 2000 ANNOUNCE DATE -- MIDRANGE-L

1)  I remember a video from a COMMON or something some years ago.  It showed 
two businessmen.  One was using a 400 and he cooly answered several phone 
calls.  In that time he handled customer orders, search personnel records for 
qualifications to find a fork lift driver, and numerous other tasks.  The 
second businessman dang near covered his whole PC with post it notes on things 
to do.  Then the two businessmen go to lunch - fade out to AS/400.  Would be a 
danged expensive and long commercial, but a heck of an effective one.

2)  I remember an Apple commercial.  Showed a help desk.  Many people were 
answering phone calls regarding the Microsoft products, (maybe DOS?).  Could 
hear them trying to talk users through (fast to experienced, but cryptic to 
newbies) DOS commands.  The Apple person made out like the Maytag repairman.  
My question:  Did this commercial help Apple make sales?





ddi@datadesigninc.com on 10/30/99 09:22:13 AM
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Subject:        Re: ROCHESTER PUSHES BACK 2000 ANNOUNCE DATE

> Pardon the bitterness, please. I just get very peeved when a company with 
>some of
> the best technology in the world isn't trumpeting it to anyone who'll even
> pretend to listen. (Unlike a certain company that will ceaselessly promote
> generally inferior technology as if it's the latest thing in computer science
> even if the "solution" was one IBM already invented twenty years ago.)

amen! amen!

when the os/2 warp ads came out, i wondered at the time what they were
thinking!  how on earth is an ad with a kid with wild hair going to sell
a serious business product?  if i hadn't known, i'd have thought it was
a video game. 

they should have run ads with one guy re-booting his p/c, yelling for
tech help, throwing things, messy desk, etc., and the guy at the next
desk puttering away without a problem, who's calm, neat, and organized. 
that would have gotten peoples attention.  that hits us where we live!

and the magic (tragic) box ads are cut from the same cloth!  what on
earth do dancing school children or people doing yoga in front of a
computer do with serious business computing i ask you! 

ibm needs to come up with a creative way to extol the virtues of the
as/400 in a creative, catchy way that gets peoples attention.  their ad
campaigns are catchy, (well maybe sort of) but they do not get the
message out! 

a good as/400 ad campain would be to have two company execs having
breakfast and comparing their d/p budgets.  start with the one that's
gone to a network, doubled staff, etc, and then have the other kick in
about how much they've saved since they got an as/400...  

the generic ads are not effective.  like car ads, you need to take the
selling feature of each product and sell that.  (like you don't see
generic magic car ads.) 

nj
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