Difference between revisions of "Talk:MarketingCampaign Q3-2007"

Latest revision as of 17:47, 26 June 2008

Let's get the discussion going here. In terms of Suns contribution to the project, they earmarked a proportion of it to merchandise, that part appears non-negotiable. 80% of the contribution has already been spent on online contextual text advertising aimed at increasing downloads. History is against us it seems. Turning clickthroughs into downloads being the challenge. Unfortunately we, the project, were too late into the mix to do anything about that even though I am absolutely certain that we would have been able to do the job better. Anyhow past tense.

We have a number of issues to resolve, in order.

1) Target market Given that our distribution channels are necessarily limited, we either piggy back on someone else distribution channels (One reason I like the Kellogs CD idea) or we target groups in a single geographical area. Trade Shows are an obvious answer, unfortunately this often costs a fortune and while we have the funds for the merchandise we don't have any earmarked for booths and such like. Tertiary Education Institutions are another and the advantages I'm sure I don't need to enumerate

2) locality I think will be governed to a degree by the physical support within the local OOo community or perhaps support from a Local Business Partner. A suggestion was made earlier that we limit it to English speaking markets for this round

3) Type of merchandise Florian has already worked on T-Shirts and USB drives and so we are a fair way down the track with that. Still don't know some critical info like quotes and sources.

4) Logistics- Distribution Critical point will be the point of origin for the merchandise. Preferably as close to the the target localities. Even better if we can use local businesses to do the manufacture and get them in behind the programme, using their own local networks. Sending stuff globally is expensive and can be problematic. However this process is a whole new ballgame and my feeling is that Sun want their suppliers to do the merchandise although they haven't come out and said that. But given the history of communication on this particular initiative, they may have done but we haven't heard it.

5) Use of Merchandise

What should the merchandise be used for?

Below are some concrete proposals what can be done with the merchandise with a focus how our (Vodes.Net) initiatives can help promoting OpenOffice/Sun (in student circles).

a) Merchandise as prize for participation in OO Course

Merchandise (T-Shirts, USB sticks) can be given to participants of OO courses. For instance, students who write their thesis or paper with our (or any other, more complex) thesis template would get a T-Shirt. If there is serious interest in this, we would make an improved template and (multi-lingual) video tutorial on our templates' use.

b) Merchandise Appearance in fun Student Sport Videos

T-Shirts can be used to reward students who "lend" their sport skills to a "Team Openoffice/Sun" Video Highlight 1 within our ProFun Games.

--Coreteamvn 13:23, 13 October 2007 (CEST)

The critical point here is that in terms of a global campaign we have peanuts to play with. The upside of course is that we didn't even have crumbs before, and peanuts is better than crumbs in any mans language :)

We cannot hope to generate a global marketing impact with the same money that MS marketing spends worldwide every two minutes, so we have to be smart. As a couple of people pointed out, using the money to do a project that generates news coverage would be the best way to do things.

I like the South Africa idea. If we could figure out something that becomes worthy of a comment from Nelson Mandela, THAT would be the ultimate. Mr Mandela's every utterance is news.... Although I wouldn't approach him right now, he's praying hard that the Argentinian Pumas don't knock the Springboks out of the world cup. :)

Edit as you see fit

Graham Lauder 05:18, 12 October 2007 (CEST)

If we do want to do something newsworthy, we have to think of something original (like Firefox did with their "Firefox Download Day"). It should be a one-day event. Currently, I can't think of anything. If you have an idea, please post it below...

-- Mirek2 11:47, 26 June 2008 (CEST)