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From: kagle@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Jonathan C. Kagle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Marketing suggestion for C-A
Message-ID: <1353@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: Fri, 12-Jun-87 10:30:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: batcompu.1353
Posted: Fri Jun 12 10:30:15 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 01:18:28 EDT
References: <1209@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <8706120436.AA07456@cogsci.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: kagle@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu.UUCP (Jonathan C. Kagle)
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 53
Keywords: Free publicity, introductory software.
Summary: Kaleidoscope was a great idea...why not follow up?

In article <8706120436.AA07456@cogsci.berkeley.edu> bryce@COGSCI.BERKELEY.EDU (Bryce Nesbitt) writes:
>>Here is a fantastic way to give the A500 & A2000 a good sendoff, and
>>it won't cost Commodore megabucks worth of advertising either...
>>
>>Negotiate with Electronic Arts and give away a free copy of Dpaint I
>>with each machine.
>>Another idea might be to get Fred to make a "Best of Fred Fish" disk
>>with the most useful programs from his collection (VT100, Matt's
>>Shell, etc) and make that a giveaway with the new machines.
>
>>then C-A
>>could give new owners usable software for next to nothing.
>
>But would SOFTWARE companies like this?!  The market for a programmer's editor
>is kinda down_the_tubes if everyone has Matt's DME...
>
	C-A did a similar sort of thing with the Electronic Arts/Polyscope 
disk.  I think that they were given the rights to an early version of PolyScope
(supposedly "an evolving project at EA") in return for the inclusion of a 
slide show.  Why not give away a dozen or so disks with contributions from
major manufacturers: a short adventure game from InfoCom, Dpaint II with many
of the advanced options shadowed and unavailable, Activision's Music Studio
with the save option disabled, Aegis Impact with no data import facility, etc.
Also throw in a copy of TextCraft and Graphicraft and several IFF pictures.  
This would "whet the appetites of consumers" while providing introductory
applications.  Heck, if you don't like the software, at least you have some
extra disks :).
	When Apple introduced the Macintosh, one of their first marketing 
plans was to sell the dealers and the salespeople on the Mac.  They sold
Macs for personal use at ridiculously low prices (for then).  Salespeople
bought tons of them and became both knowledgable and enthusiatic, as 
virtually all computer owners are about their machines.  Perhaps C-A could
do a similar thing- asking one salesperson or two at each dealer to become
"an Amiga person"-giving them training, marketing tools, and a computer.
Apple helped penetrate the education market by giving away ONE apple to each
school (along with software).  The teachers became familiar with the system
and bought software for it.  When the school board bought computers, the reply
from teachers was "Well, we already know the Apple ][, and have bought soft-
ware..." so they bought more Apples.  When parents asked Junior what computer
to get, he told them of all of the Apples at school ("Teachers know best!")
and of all of the neat games he could copy and...
	We all agree that Commodore needs some creative marketing, but that
should not be limited to the mass media.  Having a one page ad for the Amiga
in Newsweek or a 30-second spot during Cheers is expensive and, quite 
frankly, wouldn't attract that many customers no matter how glitzy.

	-Jonathan C. Kagle
>----------
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> |\ /|  .
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