Re: IBM Linux Ad during Super Bowl

["Michael Naughton" <mnaughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All well and good, but then what was IBM's rationale for running the Linux
ad?

Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>OK  Maybe I've been brainwashed by Malcome Haines and Dr. Frank and John 
>Reed, and others but.....  My company doesn't buy television advertising 
>in our local market because the price of it is beyond the reach of our 
>finances.  If it was within our finances we wouldn't do it anyway. Why? 
>Because the average person watching television isn't the person 
>responsible for purchasing an iSeries.  Pick any number you have heard, 
>Recently I heard there are 750,000 iSeries and AS/400 CPUs out there. 
>Right or wrong that's a teeny tiny fraction of those watching any TV 
>show, Super Bowl included.  How dows Dodge, or GM, or Ford or even 
>Pepsi/Coke or Budweiser/Millerdo it? VOLUMN baby. I didn't look up how 
>may $40,000 vehicles the big three sell in a year but you can bet they 
>EACH sell more units per year than IBM has sold AS/400 and iSeries 
>EVER.It doesn't take a huge add on per unit to pay for their campaigns 
>and oh by the way, nearly every single person who watched the superbowl 
>owns or rides in a car, truck or SUV.   I spoke recently to the 
>presedent of one of my customer oompanies. (A president who was most 
>recently their director of sales) They sell products that you all have 
>seen, especially if you've used a) A S/36, b) A S/38 as well as lots of 
>other items more current than that. I asiked him why as a sucessfull 
>market leading global company they didn't advertise on TV, or in Wall 
>Street, or on Radio. Why? Because it doesn't cost effectively hit their 
>target audience!  So go on wishing for a gigantic national or even world 
>wide ad campaign for iSeries but then expect the price of your next 
>iSeries to reflect the costs of that campaign.
>
>So while I believe in the iSeries as much as anyone and would enjoy 
>seeing national advertisement, I'm not holding my breath for them, nor 
>declaring the iSeries dead because I don't see them.


Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx