Black Friday

[xxnick1975]

Re:

Just got an email from kwik fit promoting a free winter brake check.....

Skid marketing.

 

[The History Man]

If it was for good year Grand Prix S,

Sir Robert Marketing.

 

[technodup]

Re: Re:

The motivation for people at the outset was to encourage the younger generation to get back to past times where there was more innovative software development. That's an altruistic ethos, not a commercial one.

FFS it's not all about spivs in Savile Row suits working out ways to cream every last penny from the gullible public. The motivation is irrelevant, Pi saw a need, created a product to fulfil it, priced it as cheap as chips and PR'd the hell out of it. If you don't see that as marketing then you genuinely don't understand the term.

That's just bollocks - but people like you can only see it from that one perspective.

The people behind the Raspberry Pi weren't seeing a need per se, or a gap in the market - they had aspirations of an altruistic basis, in encouraging the younger generation to return to a degree of softwre innovation. Not for their own benefit.

One last try.

The commonly held view is that marketing is about making money, I understand that. However as you've pointed put there are other motivations, such as education or charity where money isn't the main aim. By your logic charities and universities shouldn't have marketing people within them. Newsflash- they all do.

Charities, Pi or OpenSource projects still need customers, or users. They way they go about attracting them is a process of marketing. The Pi example is a great one of how marketing works. The idea was to inspire youngsters into programming, not to make money- perfectly laudable. Young people, schools and techies are the target market. They made the barrier to entry low, with a [price] of £25, the [product] was bare bones so users could see the workings and play with/upgrade it, they used PR including articles in the BBC Tech section to [promote] it and they sold the first ten in that little known [place] Ebay once demand had been created, raising £16000 for items with a face value of £220.

If I'm ever asked to give an example of 'non commercial' marketing success I only need to remember this thread, Pi is perfect.

They've gone on to refine the product (and the other 3Ps) and have sold nearly 4 million of the things. I don't know if they take a penny themselves or if it all goes back into research/education or whatever- it doesn't matter. They might be Oxbridge boffins, I don't know if they had advisors or not but either way, I repeat, if you don't accept that as an example of successful marketing then you do not understand the term.

But then we've already established that.

 

[videojetman]

Re:

.

 

[Neil]

Re: Re:

FFS it's not all about spivs in Savile Row suits working out ways to cream every last penny from the gullible public. The motivation is irrelevant, Pi saw a need, created a product to fulfil it, priced it as cheap as chips and PR'd the hell out of it. If you don't see that as marketing then you genuinely don't understand the term.

That's just bollocks - but people like you can only see it from that one perspective.

The people behind the Raspberry Pi weren't seeing a need per se, or a gap in the market - they had aspirations of an altruistic basis, in encouraging the younger generation to return to a degree of softwre innovation. Not for their own benefit.

One last try.

The commonly held view is that marketing is about making money, I understand that. However as you've pointed put there are other motivations, such as education or charity where money isn't the main aim. By your logic charities and universities shouldn't have marketing people within them. Newsflash- they all do.

Charities, Pi or OpenSource projects still need customers, or users. They way they go about attracting them is a process of marketing. The Pi example is a great one of how marketing works. The idea was to inspire youngsters into programming, not to make money- perfectly laudable. Young people, schools and techies are the target market. They made the barrier to entry low, with a [price] of £25, the [product] was bare bones so users could see the workings and play with/upgrade it, they used PR including articles in the BBC Tech section to [promote] it and they sold the first ten in that little known [place] Ebay once demand had been created, raising £16000 for items with a face value of £220.

If I'm ever asked to give an example of 'non commercial' marketing success I only need to remember this thread, Pi is perfect.

They've gone on to refine the product (and the other 3Ps) and have sold nearly 4 million of the things. I don't know if they take a penny themselves or if it all goes back into research/education or whatever- it doesn't matter. They might be Oxbridge boffins, I don't know if they had advisors or not but either way, I repeat, if you don't accept that as an example of successful marketing then you do not understand the term.

But then we've already established that.

I do understand the term.

The difference is, where the Raspberry Pi was concerned, is - you were rapping on about how marketing people came up with ideas, make things and then sell them to people. That's not why the Raspberry Pi came into being.

The idea was to stimulate innovation, the means / trick - that got established after a little thought, was a homebrew, bare-bones computer. They got their idea out to their "market" by means of marketing - but it didn't start as a marketing idea, created by marketing people - it started as an ethos with altruistic goals - marketing was a means to an end, not an end in it's own right.

One of the goals was for it to be homebrew, and also for it to be very cheap - so that normal issues with the market and everybody wanting their slice of the Pi wouldn't detract from the availability they wanted to achieve.

So no doubt you and your ilk will try and claim the success of the Raspberry Pi as a marketing triumph - why am I not surprised - but it didn't start as a marketing idea - it started as an altruistic idea of how to stimulate innovation in young people that was more present in previous times. Marketing was used to achieve that, but it didn't start out as notion created by those in marketing as you'd have claimed in some of your earlier posts.

As to open source, you simply don't understand what you're commenting on. The goal is collaboration and open sharing and freedom of information for collaborative reasons - not actually being restricted by the "market" - not some end product. Most of the people involved do so, deliberately, because they're trying to break down barriers created by the market, and proprietary interests - by effectively saying, this is "open" not owned by anyone (not even the person who writes it), and for the benefit of anybody that can make use of it - that's got feck-all to do with price, product, promotion or place - practically deliberately.

Charity? Well fair play - often they are run like businesses - they even advertise on mainstream TV, and indirectly employ chuggers. All the same, though - soup kitchens? Have you ever actually spoken to anybody who volunteers? They're not thinking about product or anything else - most that I've encountered do so purely out of empathy and to help people. And location? They're lucky to get wherever they can.

The real flaw? Your belief that the concepts of marketing can be applied to everything - in some cases in a revisionist way. Not EVERTHING nor EVERYONE are driven by a goal of using the MARKET for EVERYTHING they do - and open source is a good example of that, as was the initial motivation that resulted in the Raspberry Pi.

Why I could just invent some new word for human behaviourism, call it kidology, and say that everything you've ever done, everything you'll ever do - even everything you'll just think of doing - well all of that is down to the principles of kidology, and that'll be 100k of your finest pounds for the privilege.

 

[technodup]

You quite evidently don't.

Your idea of the market is the commercial, money driven, advertising heavy world of big business. You seem unable to grasp that not for profits target a market of their own, the people who use it (you (and I)) are the market, and aspects of the product, usually cost but also sharing and development are drivers for that market to use it. You might like to feel all superior because you've deprived MS of a few quid for Office by using OpenOffice but the 4Ps still apply- they're just coming from a different angle. I use OO, can't tell any difference with the 'real' Office, so the product is essentially the same, its free and easily available online (price and place). It's been downloaded 125 million times. Why can't you see that it's simply a different target market, and hence different routes to it?

Likewise with Pi, who is going to use the product and stimulate innovation if not end users? An idea without thinking of who will use or benefit from it isn't much of an idea.

Marketing was used to achieve that, but it didn't start out as notion created by those in marketing as you'd have claimed in some of your earlier posts.

I don't think I claimed anything of the sort. My central point is that it doesn't have to be 'marketing people' driving things. My dad had a garden nursery for 20odd years. He couldn't spell marketing but he successfully found customers, made a profit and grew the business to sell it. In other words he marketed the business and it's products to consumers. Without a 'marketing person' in sight.

Your language and tone clearly suggests you find something about the subject distasteful, but however you dress it up you're a user, a consumer like everyone else. And where there are consumers there are marketing people. Whether it's in the job description or not.

All the same, though - soup kitchens? Have you ever actually spoken to anybody who volunteers? They're not thinking about product or anything else

I'd strongly suggest otherwise. A soup kitchen won't last long without soup.

 

[Neil]

You quite evidently don't.

Your idea of the market is the commercial, money driven, advertising heavy world of big business. You seem unable to grasp that not for profits target a market of their own, the people who use it (you (and I)) are the market, and aspects of the product, usually cost but also sharing and development are drivers for that market to use it. You might like to feel all superior because you've deprived MS of a few quid for Office by using OpenOffice but the 4Ps still apply- they're just coming from a different angle. I use OO, can't tell any difference with the 'real' Office, so the product is essentially the same, its free and easily available online (price and place). It's been downloaded 125 million times. Why can't you see that it's simply a different target market, and hence different routes to it?

This is just completely facile - I'm not talking about the users of open source, per se - I'm talking about the people that actually do - you know, create it.

And it's not all just some end product - it's people collaborating to understand - much of it is development of OSs like Linux, Android - people collaborating to understand, make something work, write a driver for something that's not currently there, and contribute it to the rest of the community.

All you can see is commercial product vs free product.

I'm talking about how and why people actually do - you know, create, open source software - in a direct parallel to you saying marketing people design and create product, then make it and send it out there.

Likewise with Pi, who is going to use the product and stimulate innovation if not end users? An idea without thinking of who will use or benefit from it isn't much of an idea.

The goal wasn't some product or device from the outset - it was an ethos - a question: how to stimulate innovation in software development, in the youth, that's been eroded over time?

The Raspberry Pi was something they came up with in order to stimulate - it was a means to an end - they may well come up with others.

Marketing was used to achieve that, but it didn't start out as notion created by those in marketing as you'd have claimed in some of your earlier posts.

I don't think I claimed anything of the sort.

Really? From earlier:-

You keep believing you're above it and I'll keep creating stuff you want to buy.

My central point is that it doesn't have to be 'marketing people' driving things. My dad had a garden nursery for 20odd years. He couldn't spell marketing but he successfully found customers, made a profit and grew the business to sell it. In other words he marketed the business and it's products to consumers. Without a 'marketing person' in sight.

No argument - people have been doing this for centuries without some manufactured label to put on it.

They followed example, or worked things out organically. Nobody is trying to claim that marketing doesn't make big business considerably more effective.

Your language and tone clearly suggests you find something about the subject distasteful, but however you dress it up you're a user, a consumer like everyone else. And where there are consumers there are marketing people. Whether it's in the job description or not.

I don't find the concept distasteful - I simply reject the revisionism, absolutism, or the notion that if not for clever marketing people, things would never get done.

Some of the most dogmatic, fvckwitted people I've ever had to work with, were in marketing. There was always a certain commonality about them - funky glasses, or some outward statement that they were clearly free and clever thinkers, making the business work. But for me, personally, at least in a couple of prominent examples, were completely dogmatic about something that they had no evidence, beyond a bit of hearts-and-minds mithering, but were still determined to try and rail something through, regardless of the cost and risk. In the end, for these couple of decisions, the BUSINESS decided (for once, in wisdom) that the unsubstantiated claims by them couldn't be reconciled by the true cost of having to do what they'd advertised before having the presence of mind to actually check, beforehand - guess that was just too tedious and mundane for those particular free-thinkers.

All the same, though - soup kitchens? Have you ever actually spoken to anybody who volunteers? They're not thinking about product or anything else

I'd strongly suggest otherwise. A soup kitchen won't last long without soup.

Nor people to cook it and dish it up - good job there's marketing out there to provide for that need, eh.

 

[technodup]

And it's not all just some end product - it's people collaborating to understand - much of it is development of OSs like Linux, Android - people collaborating to understand, make something work, write a driver for something that's not currently there, and contribute it to the rest of the community.

A need recognised; a solution created and product distributed to the end user. You keep using examples of successful marketing to demonstrate an absence of marketing. Which is either strange, stupid or you don't get the basic principles.

Either way I'm done arguing. Feel free to have the last (misguided) word.

 

[Neil]

And it's not all just some end product - it's people collaborating to understand - much of it is development of OSs like Linux, Android - people collaborating to understand, make something work, write a driver for something that's not currently there, and contribute it to the rest of the community.

A need recognised; a solution created and product distributed to the end user. You keep using examples of successful marketing to demonstrate an absence of marketing. Which is either strange, stupid or you don't get the basic principles.

You keep trying to impose these "basic principles" on things you don't understand, but seem to be determined to think they do.

Something like Linux, wasn't a triumph for marketing back when it first became real - even though it's probably heavily used in the commercial world, now.

It was a triumph for community. It didn't get the collaboration because of any marketing principles - it got it for reasons of not being restricted by the market or propreitary software, curiosity and the desire to solve puzzles. THAT'S the difference - open source taps into a different aspect - curiosity.

You'd try and fit some rather more normal "marketing" type spin and concepts to it, so you can understand it within your frame of reference - but that's simply because you don't properly understand why open source gets done - all you see is final products like OpenOffice and why people use it, and think you can define them as a rationale based on that - but that's a very limited slice of it, and an completely unrepresentative take on why people contribute to and create open source software.

 

[EggyBum6969]

marketing convinces people to seek Gaviscon for reliefve of heartburn and acid reflux.which states "longer lasting action against heartburn" an doctors prescribe this stuff ,it only helps in the short term but when it wares off your heartburn comes back worse then before an stays an you end up hooked on big pharmas false solution,

when i told my doctor about this an said i cured my heartburn with a teaspoon of this

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/webapp/wcs/ ... z0l%2BsJpO

she said an i qoute "a lot of are job is about treatment rather then cure an she laughed an smiled"