Re: real marketing or just catchy slogans?

[Alex Hudson <home alexhudson com>]

On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 09:46 +0100, Murray Cumming wrote:
> They can at least _try_ it easily, with a Live CD. A large amount of
> anecdotal evidence suggests that this has been an incredibly successful
> route to Linux/GNOME adoption for new Ubuntu users.
>
> VMPlayer images could be even better.

I'm going to pimp http://www.colinux.org/ even though I've never used it
and don't have w32. It looks to my naive eyes that it could be as simple
as adding another kernel and a bit of runtime to a live CD. 

> Recently I've (amateurly, probably wrongly) concluded that we need to
> create a simple positive brand association, not convince people of little
> details such as this program is better than this program, or that GNOME
> starts here and stops there. It's why we hate the Intel/Coke/Cigarettes
> marketing, but it's probably why the Intel marketing is successful.

I think you're probably right. I would think, though, that the apps are
still the most important component, so the way the brand would need to
work would be that people would recognise an app as being a GNOME app,
and associate that with the "benefits" of GNOME (e.g., simplicity,
integration with nautilus, or whatever). So, when people see a new GNOME
app, they want to try it out. And they ask for a GNOME environment so
they can get access to their favourite apps. I know this runs contrary
to the thinking on usability (that user data should be the first class
object, not the app), but I can't see another way the brand could work?

Anyway, for the brand to work that way (i.e., GNOME implies good app),
we need some examples of the inverse (X good app is a GNOME app) in
order to build that association. How you make clear the latter link I
don't know; the GNOME stuff is filed off on many distros (e.g., you get
a RedHat/Ubuntu menu rather than a foot menu...)

> At some point, we might want to stop being so deferential, and accept that
> we are winning. We are the only viable Linux Desktop, simply because of
> usability. I know that's not a politically wise position for us as an
> organisation, but it's my opinion.

If you're saying marketing shouldn't be deferential, I agree - I'm not
sure where else being less deferential would benefit GNOME, though.
Ideally, you want other people to tell you you're winning ;)

Cheers,

Alex.