Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!udel!udccvax1!don From: don@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Donald R Lloyd) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: CBM's big advertising push Message-ID: <4343@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> Date: 11 Sep 89 19:36:21 GMT References: <17036@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> Reply-To: don@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Donald R Lloyd) Organization: University of Delaware Lines: 53 In article <17036@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> c162-de@zooey.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (David Navas) writes: >[Regarding commercials] >I'm really confused now. Are we going to get commercials or not? >Of what magnitude and where? (etc...) We're gonna get commercials alright. Starting October 16th, five separate commercials produced by George Lucas (an avid amiga fan!) and directed by the guy who did "Batteries Not Included." They'll be running during prime time hours from the 16 of October to the 24th of august. Look for 'em during monday night football (well, maybe I'll just tape the game & fast forward it to get to the commercials). CBM is also now an official sponsor of Monday Night Football, as well as some college games, and a bunch of the Christmas specials that apple usually buys into. Then there's the 7-page ad in Time, Life, and Newsweek. Why the sudden push? Mainly because CBM was recently approached by Lotus and Microsoft about the possibility of porting their software to the amiga. They reached an agreement that if CBM can sell 100,000 amigas in the US between October and December, they'll port their stuff over to Ami, thus giving it a tremendous boost in prestige (if I'm not mistaken, Lotus doesn't even write its stuff for the Mac...). So CBM's thrown all the dollars (and then some) that it can spare into a major ad campaign focusing on the 500 (the easiest model to sell 100000 of), hoping to reach the 100000. If they don't, they won't even break even from the ad costs, and they'll get quite a bit of negative press from it, so the amiga may never take off. So basically, it's an all-or- nothing kind of deal. In addition to the ads, they'll also be shipping 500's with a word processor, music program, and paint program, and when you send in your registration they'll send you coupons for rebates on lots of CBM & third party stuff. The guy who tells me most of this is the sysop of a local amiga BBS. He's also the product manager for a couple of local Computerland stores. Sometime next month, his two stores will start carrying Amigas (they'll only display the 500 at first, but will be able to order 2000's & peripherals) He predicts that if these two stores can sell about 200 500's in the next 3 months, not only will they continue to carry it, but they'll probably bring in a 2500. He also mentioned that a year ago, his boss ( a district manager or some such thing) was given a 500 by CBM and allowed to use it for a month or so. After this time period, when CBM came back and asked his opinion of it, his reply was something along the lines of, "I love it! But there's no way in hell I'm gonna have it in my stores!" (it would take away too many sales of the more expensive, less powerful Apple IIgs). He did buy one for himself, however. Oh yeah, called CBM's customer service line lately? Count the rings. Bet you won't hit two. (Unless of course you call at 1:00 am or some such time). -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- 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. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------