BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (03/12/90)
I guess I am going to have to post this message again. I posted it once, but the message did not get across. After you have read this message, please feel free to frame away to your heart's content. Commodore does not spend enough on advertizing. This has been clearly established. The general oppinion is that Commodore cannot afford to advertize. This is totally wrong. If Commodore cannot afford to advertize, Commodore cannot afford to be in business. Period. To say that Commodore cannot afford to advertize is like saying that Commodore cannot afford to sell a product because they cannot afford to make it. Advertizing is as much a part of any product as the product itself. Advertizing is an expense, but if it is done correctly it can result in an increase in revenues many times more than the cost of the advertizing itself. Take a case study of the Gilette company. Overall, this company is like Commodore, getting most of it's revenues overseas. Gilette takes in less than 1/5 of the total word-wide revenues that Commodore takes in, yet they advertize about 100 times more than Commodore advertizes. Gilette spends over 1/3 of their TOTAL REVENUES (not total profits!) on advertizing. Commodore spends less than 2% of their total revenues on advertizing. Something is obviously wrong here, and I don't think it is with the Gilette company. Commodore is fully capable of spending $100 Million (or more) a year on advertizing, even in the U.S. alone. If they did, they would go into debt for a very short time, but the debt would be made-up for very quickly by drastically increased revenues. Advertizing is cyclical, and any money spent on advertizing comes right back again -- if the advertizing is done well. Commodore has never had a serious long-term advertizing campaign for the Amiga. They have wasted several years in not advertizing. In order to make up for this, Commodore must spend a lot of money on advertizing, to make up for all those wasted years when they did not advertize. This will require a lot of money, but it shouldn't be viewed as money down the drain. The money will come back again in the form of increased revenues if the advertizing was done well. Like I said, go ahead and turn your flamers to FULL!! Try your best to disprove all this, I am waiting. The theory is sound, and anyone who thinks not shows that they know absolutely nothing about business.
root@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Systems Staff) (03/13/90)
In article <13629@baldrick.udel.EDU> BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: > Commodore does not spend enough on advertizing. This has >been clearly established. The general oppinion is that Commodore >cannot afford to advertize. This is totally wrong. If Commodore >cannot afford to advertize, Commodore cannot afford to be in >business. Period. Ok, how much does Commodore advertize compared to its peers of similar size? eg Everex? > Take a case study of the Gilette company. Overall, this company is >like Commodore, getting most of it's revenues overseas. Gilette takes >in less than 1/5 of the total word-wide revenues that Commodore takes >in, yet they advertize about 100 times more than Commodore advertizes. >Gilette spends over 1/3 of their TOTAL REVENUES (not total profits!) >on advertizing. Commodore spends less than 2% of their total revenues >on advertizing. Something is obviously wrong here, and I don't >think it is with the Gilette company. How much does Gilette spend on R&D? How large is the Gilette organization? Is the way that people select razor blades similar to the way people but a computer? Your analysis does not address these rather important points. Give us meaningful data, ie compare the way eg Apple or IBM advertise vs Commodore. > Commodore is fully capable of spending $100 Million (or more) a >year on advertizing, even in the U.S. alone. If they did, they would >go into debt for a very short time, but the debt would be made-up for >very quickly by drastically increased revenues. Advertizing Is it the case that advertising along will make students take out more loans to buy Amiga? Or that it will convince people that don't need a computer at all to purchase one? Or we will start to convert IBM or Apple users from their machines? $100 million is serious money, my friend. And it is a lot of Amiga. I'm glad you're not running their marketing organization ;-) Regarding your ".. know nothing about business .." statement, you are overdosing on ECO101. There are people listening to your theories in this group who are in the business of building commercial amiga hardware and software. Suffice it to say that nothing is as simple as you suppose it might be. Were there simple formulas to success, every technology company would be IBM sized and that isn't the case is it? About the only thing I can really fault Commodore on is that the machine doesn't seem to have an image any clearer than "We sell to people who don't like Mac, IBM PC, etc". This used to bother me somewhat, but it is hard to argue with success. Or so I am told ;-) Rick Spanbauer State U of NY/Stony Brook
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (03/13/90)
BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: > I guess I am going to have to post this message again. I >posted it once, but the message did not get across. After you >have read this message, please feel free to frame away to your >heart's content. aaarrrrrgh! It's fLame! not frame. Look Marc, posting one message about the CBM advertising is fine. But you've posted 4 in the last 2 days. Don't you think that's enough? I do. No, I am not the NET police, but just consider that you are weakening your own position by starting to sound like a constant whiner. I hope you don't keep this up and post basically the same message over and over, every day. Nothing you say will change what CBM does with their advertising dollar. And the more you whine, the less likely they will listen. Heck I agree that they should advertise more often, but even I am getting tired of reading it over and over again from you. Time to break out the old kill file, I guess. to the rest of you, sorry. I will take it to email from now on. -- John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY) sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406 Lead me not into temptation. I can find it myself.
swarren@convex.com (Steve Warren) (03/13/90)
In article <13629@baldrick.udel.EDU> BARRETT@owl.ecil.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) writes: > > I guess I am going to have to post this message again. I >posted it once, but the message did not get across. After you >have read this message, please feel free to frame away to your >heart's content. Oh, please, this is so arrogant. Do you really think you are the only person with a brain reading this news group? > Commodore does not spend enough on advertizing. This has >been clearly established. The general oppinion is that Commodore >cannot afford to advertize. This is totally wrong. If Commodore >cannot afford to advertize, Commodore cannot afford to be in >business. Period. I have no idea why Commodore doesn't advertise more, and I don't think you do either. I agree that all businesses need to advertise. However I think you are arguing from a position of little or no knowledge. I think that if you were sitting in the chair where that executive is sitting, and had all the knowledge and constraints that he has, you might not make the same decision, but you would certainly be a lot less critical. > Take a case study of the Gilette company. Overall, this company is >like Commodore, getting most of it's revenues overseas. Gilette takes >in less than 1/5 of the total word-wide revenues that Commodore takes [...] Gillette makes razor blades and related products. These are products that change little over a period of time, and differ little from manufacturer to manufacturer. The computer market, or any high-tech market for that matter, is such a totally different world that trying to draw any conclusions from this kind of comparison is ludicrous. [...] > Like I said, go ahead and turn your flamers to FULL!! Try your >best to disprove all this, I am waiting. The theory is sound, and >anyone who thinks not shows that they know absolutely nothing about >business. Marc, why don't you tone it down a bit? If you are such a business whiz, why aren't you running a multinational corporation by now? -- --Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------- {uunet,sun}!convex!swarren; swarren@convex.COM