RE: WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO BRING NEW CUSTOMERS TO THE ISERIES

To me the iSeries marketing problem can be likened to the problem of
marketing BMW, Land Rover, Mercedes Benz, and other top-end products that
are high priced and not sold to a mass audience. Television is probably not
the best use of marketing or advertising money for any of those products,
nor for the iSeries. 
 
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Booth Martin http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: Monday, November 03, 2003 4:55:05 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO BRING NEW CUSTOMERS TO THE ISERIES
 
HI John,
 
Snip.....
 
> I'll agree that iSeries could use some branding - but TV
>adds are a far to scattered audience to be cost effective.
>
>I just watched a weekend's worth of Dell commercials - all
>promoting low price PC's - as low as $499. This is mass
>marketing that is appropriate to the audience. Advertising
>iSeries at its price point to a TNT audience would be wasted
>effort. IMHO
 
End Snip.....
 
You may be right and the TV audience may not be there but why then does IBM
bother to advertise other high-end servers on TV? I think it is because CIO
s and managers see
those TV ad's and IBM knows this. If I were a I.S. manager/CIO I might
assume that because
something is not being promoted it must be dated. 
 
Just a thought.
 
Vance
 
John Earl <john.earl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Joe,
 
> John, I used to think much the same way you do, but lately
> I've been
> living more in the non-IBM world and it's become clear
> that LOTS of
> technical purchasing decisions are being made without a
> lot of technical
> input. Many times the iSeries doesn't make the first cut
> because nobody
> knows what one is. The fact that iSeries has ZERO name
> recognition
> actually puts it in an immediate catchup position against
> Dell, fer goshsakes.
 
I'll agree that iSeries could use some branding - but TV
adds are a far to scattered audience to be cost effective.
 
I just watched a weekend's worth of Dell commercials - all
promoting low price PC's - as low as $499. This is mass
marketing that is appropriate to the audience. Advertising
iSeries at its price point to a TNT audience would be wasted
effort. IMHO
 
jte