[Mageia-discuss] Mageia logo proposals and selection

Sun Oct 17 19:10:03 CEST 2010

2010/10/17 andré <andr55 at laposte.net>:
+> Romain d'Alverny a écrit :
+>>
+>> Hey everyone,
+>>
+>> so, to re-frame a bit things and cool down.
+>>
+>
+> Excellent.  Agree 100%.
+
+Same here.
+
+Drawing back from a fruitless stage of the discussion I took my time
+to dig out all the advertizing by the Big Ones I saw on tv and on the
+street during the last years.
+
+Apple:
+All computer related ads were technical, showing the product and
+talking about the product.(like the campaigns for the "thinnest
+laptop" and the current ads for the ipad). None showed any people
+except a middle.aged man playing with his Apple laptop.
+All ads about the real income generator of Apple are showing people
+all age, mostly single persons on the screen, either only the shadow
+with the white strips of the ipod earphones or as dancing teenagers.
+No families, no special target.
+
+IBM:
+All ads by IBM are technical. There's the empty server room with a
+manager asking where all the servers were gone. Somebody tells him all
+the work is done now by that one server running Linux. Another one
+features 2 older guys watching basketball where that one guy names
+"Linux" is better than all the others, one spectator tells the other,
+"The best thing about this guy, he's for free!".
+Current ads by IBM show CPUs and the IBM staff (people all age)
+singing the IBM jingle.
+No families, no special target.
+
+Ubuntu.
+Now I haven't seen any tv ads for Ubuntu but all advertizing Ubuntu
+does aims at the average user.
+Again no families.
+
+But:
+Almost all consumer goods (cars, washing machines, butter, meat, even
+clothing, furniture, etc.) show families in their ads and talk to a
+special target group: the young couple with kids, good income,
+managing their life with joy and as easy as a pie.
+
+What does that tell us?
+If anything it tells that the big ones do make a difference between
+marketing for computers and marketing for any other consumer goods.
+
+
+Next: Linux <-> Mageia.
+
+Yes, there is this car ad where Volkswagen tries to make people think
+"VW" as a synonym of "car" (VW, The Car). They don't succeeded. People
+still think about buying a car first and then they think about the
+brand and then the model (except hardcore gasoline junkies who think
+Porsche even while they are cleaning the dishes).
+
+Why should we think "linux" first and then "Mageia"?
+Because Linux  - as Mageia spelled it out in the "values" - is not a
+competition *against* other distributions, it is a competition while
+*collaborating* with other distributions as being said by in "values"
+page. So how can I strive to place "Mageia" on the same level as
+"Linux", ignoring that there are other Linux flavors which are using
+the same stuff as Mageia uses, which are always welcome to take from
+Mageia as Mageia is welcome to take from them?
+
+Isn't what Ubuntu tried (and succeeded in some parts of the world) in
+contradiction with the spirit of the Open Source community which
+Mageia committed itself to keep up and maintain? I'd not take Ubuntu
+as a good example for anything, except for good documentation and PR.
+I wrote about that lack of PR repeatedly in the Mandriva forum, some
+people may remember.
+
+Only some thoughts from a guy who always has been and always will be
+first a Linux user and advocate, then the user and contributor and
+advocate of a distribution.
+
+Now go on with marketing.
+
+-- 
+wobo
+