Why

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Category:Draft marketing ideas and materials 

Introduction

why.openoffice.org is OpenOffice.org's shop window to the world. It is the place where potential users come to be convinced that they should use OOo. It is co-ordinated by the OpenOffice.org Marketing Project with contributions from the Art and Website Projects and other Community members.

Important note for potential contributors

why.openoffice.org is primarily about benefits, not about features. If you don't understand the difference, read this article before going any further.

It's also about target markets, as these are groups of users who are seeking the same benefits. The SMP has a master list of features and benefits and target markets. There's also a good article in the wiki on The Case for Switching.

Style guide

why.openoffice.org is visual, engaging, big on graphics / small on text. right brain, changing, challenging. It makes clever use of web technologies, so the look and feel can be changed overnight. It looks different from the main OOo site, yet it has a consistent look and feel within all the pages. Look at the Spanish Native-language project for an example of what can be achieved.

Why a Why page :-)

This page is aimed at people who already have a rival product, which in all probability is MS-Office. There's nothing terribly wrong with MS-Office as a product - if someone's bought a copy, why should they change? So, we need a trigger event, such as:

• they buy a new PC and find it hasn't got MS-O on it
• their copy isn't really legal after all and they are worried that FAST or BSA will put them in prison
• they've just been infected with a virus
• they've just heard that the new version of MS-O looks and feels completely different and they don't want to go back to school

We can of course help to reinforce these trigger events, especially with the help of Microsoft funding (e.g. anti-piracy campaigns).

Once the trigger has happened, people look at why.openoffice.org, and we have to reassure them there is nothing to lose by changing by emphasizing the key benefits.

Structure

The home page has three groups of navigation links:

Key Benefits

• it's a great product
• it's easy to use
• and it's free

Each of these link to a page describing the benefits further

Target Markets

• governments and public administrations (especially in the developing world)
• Education establishments (schools, colleges, universities)
• Public libraries
• Small/Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
• Not-For-Profits (Not-For-Profits – charities, voluntary sector, etc)
• OEMs - Own Equipment Manufacturers building PCs with pre-installed software, especially for the low-cost / home end market
• Linux distributions looking for an office suite to ‘bundle’

with links to the benefits for those markets

Campaign Ads

Such as Get Legal - Get OpenOffice.org with a link to suitable material.

Proposals

Early drafts

A first proposal how this could look was attached to Issue 64643, created to collect design concepts.

Interim version

Work on the early drafts showed that we have the creative vision and technical knowledge needed to create a stunning 'high res' site. This will take time to evolve. In the meantime, an interim site - simpler but containing the key messages - is now on-line.

The 'High resolution' site

The latest draft of the 'high res' site design is here.