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I can't argue to much against the TV ad thing. I'm not sure if it would be
a great use of money.
However, IBM does not fly every person that could conceivably be interested
in buying an iSeries in to Rochester for a personal tour and sales pitch.
They let a few people come and visit. Also, if TV advertising is such a
waste of money...why is it being spent on advertising Linux? Why is M$
pitching 2003 server and active directory to the masses? Why is Dell
featuring ads about their servers? We've seen advertising that is not
targeted to the home pc user nor the small business owner. Why?
Mindshare? Product awareness? Some other benefit?
Now, in defense of the iSeries marketers. They have an allotment of money
to spend and are most likely limited to what they can do in a functional
sense. So, they are spending their rather finite amount of money and
attention in other areas. This is not bad, however, in my world it is
rather frustrating because we have to constantly defend our iSeries
position and it seems to me that the nay sayers are effectively ignorant on
the subject. I realize that observation is subjective and may not be
empirical. I happen to think it is a valid theory but others may not
agree.
Of course, this email and others will spark a fairly lengthy debate that we
have already had numerous times. We all have many opinions about how to
solve the problem. I wonder if we are in agreement as to what the problem
is...
1.) Does the product have the proper amount of awareness? Do people know
that it exists?
2.) Does the product have the right kind awareness? In other words to
people know the machine and what it can do?
3.) Is this information getting to enough of the right people? Do
decision makers and influencers know what is there?
If you ask me the answer to all of these questions is NO.
----- Forwarded by Mike Crump/IT/SGContainers on 02/02/2004 11:12 AM -----
Booth Martin
<Booth@xxxxxxxxxx To:
midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
om> cc:
bcc:
02/02/2004 10:52 Subject: Re: IBM Linux Ad
during Super Bowl
AM
Please respond to
Midrange Systems
Technical
Discussion
To add to your comments Larry: There is several kinds of advertising. TV
is only one kind.
Using TV advertising for the iSeries would be a horrid waste of money.
For
the same money you could fly every person that could conceivably be
interested in buying an iSeries in to Rochester for a personal tour and
sales pitch.
Whats that you say? You say they already do that? Well how about that.
---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------
-------Original Message-------
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: 02/01/04 23:16:52
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: IBM Linux Ad during Super Bowl
Don wrote:
>....and how many times have we begged for a OS/400 centric ad just to
>showup somewhere....even at 3 a.m. on the independent stations in West
>Pigs Knuckle?
>
>Anyone hear the fat lady yet?
>
>
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.
- Larry
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