It’s time for the community to take charge of its brand http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=347
The Agony of FOSS Branding http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/3824046/The-Agony-of-FOSS-Branding I have read Georg's piece with interest. Bruce Byfield's post is also worth a read. I disagree however with the analysis that FOSS is a "brand" or should develop its "brand". There is no brand and I'm not at all sure it would be worth trying to develop one. Let me explain. The world's most powerful brands (a good list to start with is here: http://www.millwardbrown.com/Sites/Optimor/Content/KnowledgeCenter/BrandzRanking.aspx) have something in common... they represent inclusion and exclusion. They stand for something and strong brands elicit strong love or hate reponses. A strong brand is recognizable and people's perception of it is formed from multiple impressions. A prospective target of the brand (consumer, teacher, or whatever) identifies with, or alternatively rejects, the brand's values. A weak brand merely elicits.. a shrug of indifference. Dozens of press releases are published every day by companies and organizations you've never heard of, brands nobody cares about. There is an argument that marketing at the project level is "microbranding" or somehow not contributing to the public's perception of FOSS in general. I would argue exactly the opposite - strong brands such as Firefox contribute enormously to the public's perception of FOSS; users know it's FOSS and associate usual FOSS values of "free", "secure", "reliable", etc. Branding is "Firefox" or "Ubuntu" or "Sugar Labs". "Microbranding" is communication, swag etc. about, say, TurtleArt or eToys - they *could* be developed as daughter brands, if that was worthwhile. Strong daughter brands often overshadow a weak "umbrella" brand; sometimes this is by design, when it's desirable to phase out a culture-specific or dated brand and replace it with a more modern one. Trying to "brand" FOSS is a nonstarter because what makes a brand powerful - that some feel included, part of it; while others feel outside and annoyed by it - means not everybody is "in". But FOSS by its nature is inclusive, not divisive... most of us probably support the freedoms to run, study, modify and redistribute code :-) A few years ago the OSI tried to establish a brand for FOSS with the keyhole logo and a license "certification" process. They were unsuccessful, partly because I think they failed to recognize the importance of freedom to the FOSS ecosystem - the GPL, which Apple carefully avoided for OSX (aside from the GNU tools), remains the most common FOSS license - but mostly because one organization can hardly assume the mantle of speaking for dozens (hundreds) of others. FOSS is a decentralized world, which creates hurdles but which ultimately offers the greatest options for direct access to the freedoms listed above. The Linux Foundation could be well-placed to do something about a FOSS brand (cf. the Apple-inspired "We're Linux" campaign after Microsoft had already copycatted it), but although GNU/Linux is FOSS, FOSS is not Linux - FOSS applications run on partly or fully proprietary OSes too (a point I don't wish to go into here). Let's think of this another way, taking an example from a totally different market: Perfumes. The fragrance industry has trade associations (and heavy participation in others such as the travel retail sector), but there's no "Perfume brand"... it's not even possible, in a market where luxury brands go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from dimestore brands. However, most women of some means can tell you a lot about perfume: what her favorite perfume is, others she has tried and liked... in places where they are all found together, such as a perfume shop or the ground floor of a high street department store. Even if Madame hasn't mentioned Guerlain, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Dior, Chanel, Lancôme, or Gucci on her list, she will recognize those names... without exception, strong brands. Strong brands usually (but not always) have roots in a country or culture; many women associate fine perfume with the great French perfume houses, which is why lots of perfumes in Russia and Japan have French names. So "Perfume" is clear to everyone, even in the total absence of a "Perfume brand". Of course, humans have liked and understood perfume since Antiquity, and the brands above have enormous advertising spend so you receive impressions whether you want to or not in glossy magazine, TV, airports, etc. FOSS is much more recent (and much more virtual). But look at how some use the same "regrouping of strong brands" concept: http://www.ncose.org/node/47 the FOSS VT conference where Walter and Caroline distributed our first branded sticks. When I first saw that page, I didn't recognize 3 or 4 of the icons; but I did recognize the others as solid tools I use all the time. It's very effective marketing because the FOSS "brand" is communicated by the association of strong individual brands together... it says that these great tools have something in common: they are FOSS, and well-suited for educational needs. So successful FOSS projects, each with a strong brand and associated together, is what the FOSS "brand" should be. Finally, perhaps obviously (but it's worth repeating), a brand's product or service has to fulfill its values promise for branding to work effectively on that Grail of marketers, word-of-mouth buzz. Top quality is usually the best way (but certainly not the only, just look at Microsoft and discount retailers). People want to trust brands - whether they like the individual brand or not, they like to *know* that a Sony camera is miniature and reliable with a good lens, that a Harley-Davidson motorcycle has a V engine and a throaty roar with a tradition of independence, that Nike means speed and high performance and correspondingly high prices, etc. We haven't taken much time yet to work on Sugar's brand values (including its roots), but that's not urgent - we are still building. What *is* important is branding ("logo, logo, and logo"). What can seem like nitpicking to outsiders ("callout should be lighter color and bigger!") is part of an ongoing effort to pack people's perceptions of Sugar into visual "shorthand". We are very fortunate to have top-level designers on the project. Sugar Labs has all the potential to become a major brand in the FOSS pantheon (I personally am convinced this will happen) and, associated with other major FOSS brands, will certainly contribute to the positive public perception of FOSS. Sean Sugar Labs Marketing Coordinator _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
