[Mageia-dev] Identifying Target Markets

[Graham Lauder]

On Saturday 02 Oct 2010 01:14:36 Frank Griffin wrote:
> I'm not sure what's going on with this ML.  I responded to a post by
> Graham Lauder, and it ended up going to him but not the ML.  He then
> responded to me privately, and we both agreed to repost to the ML.
> According to the gmane archives, he did, but I never received his
> repost, so I can't place my reply in the correct branch of the thread.
> I'll post it here, just so that it's *somewhere* in the thread...
> 
> Graham Lauder wrote:
> > 42 for me, I started with NCR in August of 1968 and went on to be MD of
> > my own company for eighteen years, these days retired on my little
> > country estate, wonderful lifestyle, bloody awful internet connection. 
> > :)
> 
> Congrats, we're both old farts :-)
> 
> > And this is not economics this is Marketing 101
> 
> No, sorry, it's not marketing when you frame it as you did:
> > We do this because at the end of the day infrastructure costs, marketing
> > 
> > > costs, a whole pile of things cost.  One day some patch or application,
> > > which is essential but completely non-sexy could require us to pay a
> > > dev on contract and so on and so forth.

The context of the above was talking about how we do have a sort of a 
commercial model and I probably shouldn't have mentioned it because it's 
pushed things off the focus of this process, but I happened to be thinking 
about it at the time, I'm a chaotic thinker so sue me..

> 
> That's economics, pure and simple.  Marketing is trying to make
> something attractive to potential purchasers.  A distro doesn't have any
> of those.

No, you're talking about advertising completely different, sure marketing 
makes decisions that will affect advertising, but at this point we don't have 
any desire or need to do any advertising, that's a long way off.

> 
> >> You make my point exactly.  The infrastructure costs are fixed, and the
> >> donor pool will be larger if the user base is larger.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> [....]  If MDV had trumpeted itself as a KDE-only Family (or Education,
> >> or whatever) distro, and reinforced that by excluding packages and
> >> infrastructure support for other stuff, I wouldn't have given a dime.
> > 
> > And you miss my point entirely, there is NO trumpeting, that's
> > advertising, there is no exclusion, rather inclusion of a missed market
> 
> Oh, come on.  Trumpeting and advertising are essentially the same thing,
> at last in the context of this discussion. 

Um, that what I said:  That the trumpeting IS advertising... we're not 
advertising, we are trying to figure out branding, that means trying to figure 
our target markets so that we can make our branding attractive in that market.  
that's marketing, not advertising  

> And what you're advocating
> is certainly exclusion; you're saying that we should design and promote
> the distro as a <fill-in-the-blank> distro in order to capture the
> mindset of a specific market share, to the implicit exclusion of other
> aims if resource limitations encroach.

You're reading a hell of a lot more in there than I put. You seem to be 
talking at cross purposes.  When I say inclusion I mean inclusion of another 
market that hasn't been catered to before.   You're talking about packages, 
I'm talking about people. 

[....]
> 
> > I am wondering why you are trying to convince me, this is not my
> > decision, I am merely an idea generator.  I give reasons as to why I
> > believe that this target market is a good one and I foster debate.  My
> > goal is simply to establish criteria for branding, nothing else right
> > now.
> 
> I'm not sure how seriously to take this.  You post an opinion about
> channeling the distro to a specific audience, and when I respond, you
> wonder why I'm trying to convince *you* ?  Frankly, I doubt if I *could*
> convince you, and it was never my intention to try.  I know an
> enthusiast when I read one.   I'm simply participating in the debate you
> initiated and want to foster.  Which includes the issue of whether we
> need branding at the distro level or not.
> 
> My opinion is that we do not.  Our infrastructure costs will be
> relatively fixed, and will be dwarfed by the cost of developer and other
> contributor time it will take to maintain Mageia.  The community
> resources we will discourage by advertising ourselves as a niche distro
> will cost us much more than the infrastructure budget.  So, while I
> would concede that your branding argument would make sense if we were
> embarking on a commercial venture, I'd have to say that it is pretty low
> on the priority list for a community distro.

Now I'm convinced we're not talking about the same thing.

You seem to think we are wanting to embark on some global advertising campaign

And all I want is to decide what colour pallet  our logo and webpage should 
use.  By figuring out what a primary target market is we can then figure out 
the colours that will suit that demographic.  That's it Simple!

-- 
Graham Lauder,
OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ
http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html

OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant.

INGOTs Assessor Trainer
(International Grades in Open Technologies)
www.theingots.org