don@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Donald R Lloyd) (09/04/89)
The following was posted to the amiga echo in fidonet sometime between
last night and tonight. I thought others might be interested.
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From: Chuck Henrich Of 120/142
To: All Msg #8069 31 Aug 89 11:48:28
Subject: Commodore Advertises!
Area: Amiga International ECHO
Read count: 2
I downloaded this off a BBS yestardy (Who in turn got it from Safe
Harbor)
These posts were found on Safe Harbor BBS. Interesting stuff here for
Amigoids!
Msg: #17133 Sec: F - Member Conference
25-Aug-89 07:29 PM
Subj: Commodore Ads (R)
From: Sysop
To: All Members
As you may have already heard, Commodore is going to advertise the
Amiga
heavily starting in October. I have some additional information that I
want
to share with A.M.U.G.'s Members. You can repeat it if you like, I
wasn't
able to extract any secrets from the ad agency.
Printed ads are going to start appearing in Time magazine starting in
October. They will consist of seven consecutive pages arranged in pairs
with
a final wrap up page. The left page will depict an artsy photo of a
professional using an Amiga application and the right page will be an
amateur using a similar application. Each ad will contain pictures of
six
people. One of them is my wife Pam. There will be two separate sets of
these
ads and we are not sure which set Pam will be in. You will know Pam
when you
see the ad when you see stacks of papers and books in the picture.
There will also be a new dealer demo released before Christmas. Pam and
I
were interviewed on videotape for the dealer demo. The ad agency was
very
pleased with the interview so we should be on the demo tape.
Ok, here's the good stuff. Commodores TV ads will be shown on network
television. I was told, "There are going to be so many Amiga ads on TV
this
Christmas that you are going to get sick of seeing them." I said, "I'll
never get sick of seeing Amiga ads." They wouldn't tell me much about
the TV
spots but I will tell you what they said. LucasFilms is doing the ads.
They
will feature a small boy named Stevie who will do wonderful things with
his
Amiga. I got the impression that Stevie would be faced with a situation
and
use his Amiga to solve a problem. I'm assuming that the special effects
will
show off the Amiga's features, rather than replace them. These ads will
probably start in October also. They are casting for the Stevie role as
I
write this. They are going to make Amiga into a household word. After
this
campaign people won't say "What's an Amiga" if you happen to mention
that
you own one.
Joe
Msg: #17137 Sec: 1 - Open Message Base
26-Aug-89 03:12 AM
Subj: New Amiga Slogan (R)
From: Sysop
To: All
The new Amiga Slogan is: Amiga, the Computer for the Creative Mind, if
my
memory serves me well. Just thought you would like to know. Only Amiga
makes
it possible was good but I like the new slogan better. It has a better
point
to make. After all, the Amiga is best utilized by creative people. It
brings
out the creative spirit in anyone who dares to try its power and
performance. So the Amiga makes it possible but end user creativity
makes it
happen. This shift in focus could help the new ad campaign succeed
where
others have failed. In my recent contacts with the ad agency handling
the
Amiga compaign, I have noticed one very important fact. Everyone that I
met
was really interested in learning about the Amiga and had a hard
driving
attitude geared towards making the new campaign succeed. They intend to
put
the word Amiga on everyone's lips starting in October. This is going to
be a
big campaign. Oh, if only I could buy more Commodore stock. It will
never be
this cheap again. OK, just out of curiosity, check option '9' on the
bulletin menu when you call. I usually update it after 5:00 PM.
Sometimes
I'm late and once in a long while I forget but most of the time the
info is
up to date. When this message was written CBU was 10 & 5/8ths. I
predict it
will be back up to $19 per share by next spring. I'm not a stock
analyst,
just an Amiga enthusiast.
Joe
--- CM 4.6x
* Origin: NEC 107 EchoGate (1:107/3)
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Sounds good to me!
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- Don Lloyd El Campeador don@vax1.acs.udel.edu |
| |Gibberish is | DISCLAIMER: don@pyr1.acs.udel.edu |
| |spoken here. | My employers are idiots. They wouldn't understand | | --------------- my babbling even if they WERE literate enough to read it. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------gaspar@stl-08sima.army.mil (Al Gaspar) (01/23/90)
Sun Kun Kim writes: > Me too! However, I resent your statement about pimpy teenagers. Now I know how the 'kids' afford their Amigas... ;-) > ...On the more serious side of the spectrum, I > think Commodore marketing really stinks. They use all the big names and > spend all that hard-earned dollars into a mediocre Ad campaign. I don't > think they used their funds wisely. First of all, they spent a BIG > chunk of the dough(was it 20 million?) to sign 'big shots' at Hollywood > as well as Washington. This is was a mistake in the fact that the > commercials really did not show the capabilities of the machine. ...[Deleted] > People want facts and not famous faces.... Remember that advertising is an "art not a science" (cliche #1). In advertising you "sell the sizzle, not the steak" (cliche #2). The competition (Apple, IBM, et al.) sells as much on perception as on fact. In an advertisement of any type you have a limited time to catch the audience's attention and make your point; so you tend to work towards limited goals such as recognition. People don't read magazines or watch television mainly for the advertisements; they are watching a program or reading an article. You are interrupting them. The use of celebrities to push product is a recognized ploy; people pay good money for those persons because it continues to work. You use the celebrities' recognition to gain attention and build your product's recognition, credibility, and image. This is not to say that CBM's campaign was good (the results are not in yet). However, it was definitely a better approach than selling the Amiga on facts would have been. Remember, at least in advertising, facts are boring (cliche #3) :-). It is probably too early, but has anyone heard how sales did over Christmas? Cheers-- Al -- Al Gaspar <gaspar@stl-08sima.army.mil> (used to be <gaspar@almsa-1.arpa>) USAMC SIMA, ATTN: AMXSI-TTC, Box 1578, St. Louis, MO 63188-1578 COMMERCIAL: (314) 263-5646 AUTOVON: 693-5646 uunet.uu.net!stl-08sima.army.mil!gaspar
martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Ross D. Martin) (01/24/90)
> Sun Kun Kim writes: > > ...On the more serious side of the spectrum, I > think Commodore marketing really stinks. They use all the big names and > spend all that hard-earned dollars into a mediocre Ad campaign. I don't > think they used their funds wisely. First of all, they spent a BIG > chunk of the dough(was it 20 million?) to sign 'big shots' at Hollywood > as well as Washington. This is was a mistake in the fact that the > commercials really did not show the capabilities of the machine. > I agree with you that Commodore marketing stinks. But I don't have any problem with their commercials, despite the fact that I never saw one. (Or is it because of that fact?) My real problem is that Commodore is passing up lots of good free advertising. No one buys your product if they don't see it. Around here (Phoenix, Arizona) if you are an average Joe, the only place you are likely to see an Amiga is in a Software Etc. in B. Dalton's. Let's face it, few people just wander into a computer store and look. A lot more people would see Amigas if they were sold in Sears and K-Mart. And the more times someone sees an Amiga, the more times they are likely to become interested in something they see running, the more support they will think is available for it, etc. Commodore never needed to advertise the C-64. That's because you ran into one every time you went to the store. What better advertising is there than that? Ross Martin
stewartw@cognos.UUCP (Stewart Winter) (02/02/90)
In article <450@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> martin@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Ross D. Martin) writes: >Let's face it, few people just wander into a computer store and look. A lot >more people would see Amigas if they were sold in Sears and K-Mart. And the >more times someone sees an Amiga, the more times they are likely to become >interested in something they see running, the more support they will think >is available for it, etc. In Canada, K-Mart does sell the Amiga. So does one of its competitors (Canadian Tire). The only thing I have ever seen running on their Amigas is the Workbench Hand. That isn't going to sell anything. A computer does not sell itself the way a sock might. Someone who can answer questions has to be there ... otherwise the store itself doesn't pay attention to it. Get them interested in the amiga (what the commercials did) and tell them where to go to find one (the 1-800 #). Sounds like a pretty good campaign to me. Stewart -- Stewart Winter Cognos Incorporated S-mail: P.O. Box 9707 VOICE: (613) 738-1338 x3830 FAX: (613) 738-0002 3755 Riverside Drive UUCP: uunet!cognos!stewartw Ottawa, Ontario "The bird for the day is .... alexandrine parakeet." CANADA K1G 3Z4
dfrancis@dsoft.UUCP (Dennis Heffernan) (02/02/90)
In article <22008@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> jma@beach.cis.ufl.edu (John 'Vlad' Adams) writes: >In article <609@dsoft.UUCP> dfrancis@dsoft.UUCP (Dennis Heffernan) writes: >>Despite have a graphic interface, it's harder to learn to use an >>Amiga than it is to learn how to use an IBM. > >Ok, EVERYONE. Please note this was Mr. Heffernan's humble personal opinion! >Puh-lease don't hit that F key and start a flame-fest that would make the >sun look like a fire-crackers. > >Mr. Heffernan, > >Puh-lease do not encourage a flame fest by posting such utterly biased >personal opinions as this. >-- >John M. Adams --*-- Professional Student on the six-year plan! // >Internet: jma@beach.cis.ufl.edu -or- vladimir@maple.circa.ufl.edu \\ // >"Houston, we have a negative on that orbit trajectory." Calvin & Hobbs \X/ Um, I don't see what's so "utterly biased" about that statement, though it is of course a personal opinion. I have an Amiga, which I like very much, and I sell and use IBM's at work, which I really don't care for. I'm hardly an expert with either type of machine, but I've learned my way around both operating systems. The Amiga's is more complicated, and that makes it harder to use, IMHO, than a PC. This may be due to the fact that, IMHO, using a PC is like driving a car and using an Amiga is more like flying a jet, but that wasn't the question. I've seen people who knew how to use Clones flounder about when given an Amiga until someone showed them how to use it. The main stumbling blocks are the lack of documentation- are they *still* shipping the machine without AmigaDOS manuals?- and the fact that the machine has both a command line and a W.I.M.P. :-) interface, and you have to learn when you can just do things from the Workbench, and how, and when you have to use the CLI/Shell to do something, and how. I'm now holding classes at a local Software ETC, showing people just those things. It is NOT all point and click like a Macintosh (and Mac owners have the worst time- the Amy looks enough like a Mac to let them think they know what they're doing.) Finally, I must have seen a few hundred messages go by since I said that, and nobody said anything about it until you felt it necessary to tell us NOT to start a flame war. Shouldn't that have gone in mail? I know this should have, but I'm one of the wretched refuse without access to a smart mailer. -- --dfh ...uunet!tronsbox!dsoft!dfrancis "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein