Am 16.11.2007 um 12:26 schrieb Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller:
Well, that does not fulfill all criteria for a good slogan: it does
not describe a benefit for someone (contrary to "making your users
smile").
It is just a descriptive claim statement - and you may simply
agree or
disagree and discuss hours about it.
There's a difference between Nokia (to stay with your example) and
GNUstep: Everybody knows what Nokia is (a rubber boot
manufacturer, right ;-)) but GNUstep has not that mindshare (yet).
So the purpose of a slogan for Nokia is different to the purpose
of a slogan for us: Nokia wants to improve its public image while
we try to get into the heads at all, try to straighten some common
misconceptions about GNUstep.
Nokia has used this slogan (tagline) since 15 years to get into our
heads and straighten the misconception that they make rubber boots...
o.k. but then again it's also a kind of a descriptive claim
statement: "We at nokia are 'connecting people', since you don't do
that using rubber boots you should understand that we are now in the
communication business."
So I think a descriptive claim statement is exactly what we need
at the moment, some "feel good" statement can follow up later when
we don't need to explain any longer what GNUstep is. (Try it for
yourself: Tell some computer related people that you are involved
into GNUstep. You surely get the reply: "GNUstep - what's that?").
... and then, you start to smile (because you know yourself
"GNUstep - makes your users smile") and reply (with a smile in your
face) that GNUstep is the greatest thing on world they never have
heared of.
This would only happen if someone already uses GNUstep - not if he
only heard or read about it some minutes (or longer) ago. Software is
more abstract than a mobile handset and this is even more true for
software created for developing software with (dev tools and
frameworks).
So we need to tell people what GNUstep is, associate the word GNUstep
with "development tools and frameworks".
If you smile (emotion) when giving your answer it is very
convincing to others.
So let's not do the second step before the first one.
The "feel good with" is the only purpose of a brand building
effort. Psychologists have found that we can much better remember
anything if it is emotionally biased. Anyone who is interested in
facts can already read the "what it is" on the tons of web pages we
already have.
people - the hoi polloi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoi_polloi )
that is - are generally ignorant. They make their mind up about
something whether they really know it or not. look at the lengthy
discussions on slashdot after every GNUstep article - and how full of
missinformation they are.
And the first lesson for potential GNUsteppers is that they simply
remember that "GNUstep" exists. "What it is" is the second step.
How did Nokia come to their 99% mind-share? Because they did the
second step first. Nokia did have their "connecting people" right
from the beginning, just after they decided to no longer make
rubber but to connect people ( In this document from 2001 they say
that they have already used this tagline for a long time: http://
press.nokia.com/PR/200111/840959_5.html ).
When someone asked 15 years ago (when nobody did know much about
mobile phones) "who is Nokia?" they said: "Nokia is a leader in
mobile communications and connecting people to people." Then, one
thinks: oh, great, they do something with benefit for real people.
They care about us. And they are obviously proud of doing it. This
must be good and the future.
If they would have said: "Nokia is a maker of mobile phones in
Finland with 30 keys and 50cm antenna", then people would have
thought:
- what do I need a mobile phone for?
- can they do that in Finland at all?
- isn't this expensive?
- why doesn't it have 31 keys?
- etc.?
Might be true, but never forget the amount of money which was put
into that campaign so that finally everybody has learned through
endless repetitions on all channels that "nokia connects people".
Maybe we find a compromise, something that tells facts and makes
people curios at the same time. I liked the proposal of markjoel60,
because it also mentions NeXT:
"GNUstep - For every developer who's ever asked: What's Next?"
Nikolaus
regards,
Lars
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