Marketing of Gnome

[John Williams <jwilliams business otago ac nz>]

Hi team,

The issues that have been discussed by Sri, Sankarshan, Sebol and Chee
Bin HOH are issues that all marketing decision makers must face.  Why is
it so hard?

Because it is not the place of marketers to make these decisions in the
absence of a clear direction from top management.  (In this case, I
suppose that would be the Gnome Foundation board members.)

The marketing function cannot even _start_ planning until there is a
clear statement of why the organisation exists and what it is trying to
achieve.  So we need to wait a bit.

Regarding the promotion/communication facet of the marketing function,
it is critical that all communication is coordinated, not only
internally, (i.e. that all messages are consistent with each other) but
externally (i.e. that the communications are consistent with other
aspects of strategy).

As for segmentation, I suggest that at this stage we treat the market as
relatively homogeneous until natural segments begin to emerge.  It may
be that there is really no important difference between Aunt Tilly and
corporate users on the relevant dimensions.

cheers,

John