From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Subject: Re: More thoughts on ads..
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 20:24:15 GMT

In article <1993Jan3.190812.19767@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr) writes:
>In article <1993Jan3.162947.6596@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
>>It occurs to me that a computer/computer software that is advertised 
>>on TV or radio is in pretty bad shape.
>>
>>Observation:  Never has a TV campaign, so aimed, succeeded.
>>
>>Examples:  Commodore Amiga's number of ads
>>	   The original PS/2 and OS/2 ads (MASH)
>>	   Phillips CDI & Commodores CDTV (flops) 
>
>Or then there's Microsoft Windows and it's associated software.  Or the
>Intel Inside campaign.  Yep, it's never succeeded.


	Those were not TV campaigns in any meaningful way.  I don't 
	think it would be wholly unrealistic to argue that the TV ads 
	were next to meaningless next to the media saturation that
	Windows and Intel aimed at.  Windows, well, got it mostly 
	for free. Intel has one or more two-page spreads every month in
	most ofthe computer magazines.  Intel also has concentrated it's
	Intel Inside campaign in a sort of insidious advertising rebate
	plan that eliminates the price difference between the Intel
	parts andtheAMD/Cyrix parts by paying some of their advertising
	costs.  (Something much more anti-competitive, IMHO, than Microsoft
	has everdone).



>>When you advertise on TV or radio you are spending a lot more to contact
>>a limited number of people.  How many of those listeners/watchers
>>have computers?  How many know jack about them?
>
>Actually when you advertise as IBM did on a major bowl game, you hit
>EXACTLY the market you want: College-educated men between the ages of 24
>and 45.  Unfortunately, IBM dropped the ball with their totally lame
>advertising.


	1.  I strongly doubt if "college educated" is really the majority
	of the foot-ball watchers demographics.  Furthermore, I doubt that
	this is mostly irrelavent: college educated != computer literate, 
	by any stretch of the imagination.  I imagine that more computer
	literate people could be reached by advertising on scifi shows or
	more general non-sports related_entertainment_.  Probably for a 
	lot less than IBM spent on the Fiesta Bowl.

	2.  Even ignoring this, they could have hit a lot more
	of a concentrated audience by advertising in computer 
	magazines or hitting the college campus promotional route. 
	Magazines dedicated to computers *ensure* that the audience
	is at least somewhat interested in the subject.  There is
	a much greater chance of hitting receptive minds in a
	self-selected audience than there is in trying your luck
	and spending a fortune on a football game.


>>A few ads in a some computer magazine (say, a two or three page insert
>>a la DesqView/X)--or all ofthe computer magazines--would deliver a much
>>higher hit rate than any radio or TV ad. 
>
>Not true at all if the target market is the general home audience, the
>folks who have been buying Windows like crazy.


	OS/2 is not targeted at the home audience.  Most still have
	8088 and '286 machines that OS/2 wont run on at all.  The rest,
	for the most part have 386 machines with 2 or 4 megs of 
	RAM and a 40 to 60 megabyte harddisk.  These people run DOS
	and Windows, and would be very unhappy trying to run OS/2.

	The audience that IBM is targeting, that is, the people with
	the equipment *already* to run OS/2 are already aware of it,
	the are simply not trusting of it.  They need 1) name confidence
	(the mess of 1.x versions makes people wary of OS/2, and the
	media "OS/2 is doomed" isn't helping) 2) reason to bother with is.
	
	Advertising on the Fiesta Bowl, unless it was *very cheap* 
	(unlikely) was a stupid waste of funds that could have gone elsewhere.


>>And "multitasking" is not the thing to advertise.  Most people--99% of them--
>>can multitask adequately under Win3.1 w/4 megs and a 40mb HD (stacker or without).  The thing to push is that OS/2 is in many ways better (but let's not
>>lie about it) and costs no more.  Furthermore, it would be nice to see some
>>ads that showed real performance benchmarks for a 386sx-20 w/8 megs compared
>>to the same system under DOS or Win3.1.. 
>
>I agree with you here.  The multitasking issue is a bit arcane for these
>folks, what IBM should have stressed was the superior crash protection,
>the improved user interface and the ability to run most existing
>software more efficiently.


	As far as these folks are concerned:

	1.  OS/2's superior crash protection is irrelavent.  If the
	program crashes (windows) they simply reboot and have it running 
	again in one to two minutes.  Auto-save prevents most losses
	of work, so nothing much is lost even if it does go down.  
	Plus, Windows doesn't crash much for the non-DOS using
	"average" user.  DOS hardly crashes at all (and the difference
	between DOS crashing and OS/2 killing a task because it 
	went awry is minor--in both cases, you have to start 
	from the last autosave).

	2.  As far as these folks are concerned, the WPS is a clumsy,
	confusing jumble next to the simple drool-and-click Program
	Manager.  Want to run Word?  Click click double-click.  Nothing
	to it.  The "average" user hardly does any file management, so
	that's not a big deal (and even if it is, just click click 
	double-click the file manager).  

	Remember--these folks find *Windows'* interface confusing, 	
	and it's about as drool-proof as you can get.  

	3.  Run software more efficiently??  You'll have to cite me
	an example.  I can't think of a one.


>>Then again, maybe benchmarks aren't a good idea.
>
>Benchmarks aren't such a good idea for the TV target audience.


	I was thinking of paper ads.  Although, on my system--at least--
	disk intensive DOS aps run somewhat faster on OS/2, even in 
	a window (as long as they aren't also text-scrolling intensivem
	which is even slower than Windows..).  Plus, Windows' 
	DOS capibility (which Microsoft doesn't even tout anymore)
	bites next to OS/2.  

	I can think of a couple of ads that would work nicely
	"How many times has this happened to you?" (show GPF)
	and a couple ofphotos implying that when a task in win31
	goes, so do the rest of them (not true even50% of the
	time, but as long as you don't say anything more than*often*)
	.. while in OS/2, when a windows program goes down, the
	other's don't care. 

	The best thing IBM could do for OS/2 is put off any ad
	spending until 2.1 is ready, then really blitz the
	_relavent_ media with very critical of "others" 
	ads.  Apple's PowerBook ads are a good example, and
	Apple's "This is makingit easier?" ads are/were very
	effective.

	There is no way a "general" audience can compete in
	bang-for-the-buck with a SIG audience.  The Fiesta
	Bowl was "general"--magazines, campus tours, computer
	shows--are all SIG audiences.

[apologies forspacing and C dropouts--notebook keyboard going bad  :-(  ]

-- 
	Blaming "society" for your problems is like blaming clouds for rain.
         ---  boycott == censorship == closed mindedness == cowardice  ---
	      "Psalms 23:1  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."  
		Shepherds are for sheep.   -----      Pain teaches.
Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:11461 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3634