RE: Marketing. Attention Novell Marketing staff/lurkers!
Sorry for not following the subthread regarding emphasis on Novell's marketing. This is my first post here. For the record, I'm very heavily leveraged on 1150 shares of NOVL, so I'm not here just to flame. I do have some disturbing observations to offer about recent marketing of IntranetWare, though. Even though I'm not a network administrator (used to be, now a development manager), I still follow NetWare, etc. very closely. I wasn't going to say anything, until what I see as the second straight boneheaded marketing piece in a row showed up on my desk today.
First, a couple of weeks ago, I got this box with some nice-looking statements in the red-white-black theme appearing in most ads lately about IntranetWare. "Oh good", I thought, "Novell's new marketing campaign really IS making an effort to get noticed. I'm glad they're taking a new tack on getting the word out."
I open the box and inside the top flap, there is a statement to the effect of "Do you really think you should to turn your enterprise over to Windows NT Server?" I forget the exact phrase, since I threw it away when I saw the next part. Inside the box was a miniature Magic 8-ball. You know the kind. "Oh good", I thought, "they're using a retro approach to appeal to people like me that grew up with the Magic 8-ball and are now in decision-making positions. I like that."
So the first thing I do is pick up the 8-ball, thinking about the question on the box flap, thinking "this ought to be good. It'll probably say something like 'no way' or 'you must be kidding'."
You know what it said? PROBABLY! They did not rig the 8-ball to give the message they wanted to get across. Sure the rest of the box was filled with nice literature about the merits of IntranetWare, but the message had already been delivered by the 8-ball. So I looked back at the question on the box flap and I thought to myself "HUH! Maybe NT Server really IS ready to handle my enterprise after all!"
Pardon my French, but what the hell kind of marketing is THAT? I got so pissed off I threw the box away and smashed the hell out the 8-ball.
OK. So maybe they made a mistake. They cannot afford to be making mistakes right now, but I'm a forgiving person so I tried to forive & forget.
Then today's brilliant marketing piece shows up, obviously produced by the same people.
This one is much simpler (i.e. less expensive), but still out of the ordinary, especially for Novell marketing. "Oh good", I thought, "they're still going after it. Let's see what kind of message this one delivers."
I rip open the envelope & pull out this thickish thing with a fold-over top with the message "If you believe that all enterprise networking strategies offer the same benefits, we invite you to look more closely."
I lift the flap, an inside is a miniature magnifying glass. Through the magnifying glass, I see a simple bar chart with a big Microsoft NT bar on the left and a shorter Novell Netware 4 bar on the right. So I think to myself "HUH. Microsoft NT must be better than Netware 4 (what happened to IntranetWare?) after all." When you look at the chart more closely, you see that it shows cost per month, which explains why someone would want the NT bar to be bigger. But still, the message has already been delivered, even after you look at all the rest of the literature that's included touting IntranetWare.
Now I'm no marketing wizard, but it seems to me that to be even a decent marketing person, you have to not only consider the images and words you're presenting, but you have to analyze how they will be interpreted by the average human. My understanding is that the goal of marketing/advertising is to make sure that your message leaves a POSITIVE F***ING IMPRESSION ABOUT YOUR F***ING PRODUCT!
Whoever posted the rumors a while back about the whole marketing department getting pink slips, I hope to God you're right. Can the whole department, including Mr. Donahoo (FREE WILLY!), and make a huge public announcement that you've hired the best goddamn advertising agency money can buy to handle your markting from now on. Surely there are firms out there specializing in technology advertising that know how to deliver a hip, appealing, convincing campaign. Oh yeah, they're all working for Microsoft.
Rich
p.s. Please forgive me for venting and taking up so much space, especially on my debut post. |
