[Mageia-dev] Art, Logo and Branding

[Graham Lauder]

On Friday 24 Sep 2010 02:16:30 Tux99 wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2010, Peter Watson wrote:
> > Now we really need someone with marketing expertise to drive this
> > issue forward.
> > 
> > Question is WHO?
> 
> Umm, I'm sure Graham already said that he is offering himself.

Indeed, being involved at the genesis of a project such as this is exciting as 
hell.    

> 
> Graham, I'm not a marketing person, but I agree with almost everything
> you say, the only thing that I don't agree with is that the name should
> be up for debate.
> 
> Too many practical things depend on the name so if whe change the name,
> everything else will be on hold until then.
> 
> I do think Mageia is a good name, that is versatile enough for you to
> work with, it sounds exotic (I didn't know it was greek, it sounded
> spanish to me when i first read it) it's short and unique.
> 
> So IMHO feel free to drive the marketing whichever way you like, but
> please don't ask for a name change.
> 

Heh, we do get possessive about these things and that is often a problem.

All I'm saying is ask the question, I'm not making any judgements here about 
the name, I can't, I don''t have enough information, for the same reason no-
one should say that the name is sacrosanct.  

The reason that marketing guys often come into a situation and have to say 
"Change the name!" was invariably because the name was not given any 
consideration in terms of the market.  I mean a Bed manufacturer called 
"HiTech Concrete" would not make many sales. I know that's an extreme example, 
but you get the idea.  

A name has to say something about the organisation, it has to give people a 
handle to grab onto to differentiate it from the crowd.  Redhat didn't have a 
crowd to differentiate itself from when it started but it added Linux to the 
name to differentiate it from the main opposition.  

CentOS defined it's market with it's name "Community Enterprise Operating 
System"  ie supplying an enterprise level OS to Community organisations.

Ubuntu however used it's name to define a philosophy that resonated with it's 
target market.

We have to remember that the name is just part of the branding and brand 
meaning is defined by the consumer of our product.  For us the brand should 
follow our Vision and Mission statement, the name ideally should be part of 
that branding process.

Now having said all that, :)

It is not a given that the name needs to change, any good marketing team will 
say "OK How do we make it work for us"

Somebody suggested "The Magic Continues" as a positioner.

Marketing's first responsibility is to the customer, we will look at the brand 
from their point of view not from our own.  This is a mistake that many FOSS 
communities fall into, they brand to satisfy an internal aesthetic, the 
community of developers, rather than the greater community of users.  

Any decisions that Marketing make will have to be sold to the board in any 
case and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cheers
GL 

-- 
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