Be carefull guys!! Doing away with the brandname BrOffice might turn out to be the most costly -- even fatal -- decision you ever made! Make sure you implement a three year period for "goodwill transfer"!
OK, here is the technical side of the marketing issue. For many companies, their brandname is their most valuabele asset. The brand ties users/consumers to the product. Consumers ask for a specific brand because they know and trust that brand. For the company, that constant demand for their brand is their life line. (Could you imagine Microsoft "rebranding" Windows to Fenestras? Their shares would plummet...) In commerical markets, brand names can be extremely valuable. Dumping a brand name may cost millions of dollars in lost market share and revenue. (Remember Google bought YouTube for six billion? Google could easily have set up a video site of their own for a fraction of the costs. But everyone typed "youtube.com" in the browser. So Google decided to buy the brand name / domain youtube.com for 6 billion. That's how valuable a brandname can be...) The Brazilian community does not want to make many. But they do want to retain their user base, their name recognition and their reputation. So, dropping the brand name BrOffice is not something you should without carefull consideration and the apporpriate measures. My suggestion (which is simply from the marketing text books) would be a three step approach: Phase 1: Link the unknown name LibreOffice to the established brand BrOffice. E.g. add a extra tagline like "BrOffice is the Brazilian edition of the LibreOffice productivity suite." Use this for a minimum of one and a half year. Phase 2: Use both names next to each other. Change "BrOffice" into "BrOffice/LibreOffice". Use this for another one and a half year. Phase 3: Finally, make LibreOffice the dominant name. On your website and in publications, assure the public it is still the same product. Add a line like "The Brazilian edition of LibreOffice was formerly called BrOffice". The 3.4 release of LibreOffice could be a good moment to start phase 1 (adding the tagline "BrOffice is the Brazilian edition of the LibreOffice productivity suite.") It is not the right moment to drop the established brand name. Dropping the name BrOffice without a thorough three year goodwill transfer would almost certainly be the most catastrophical decision ever made by the BrOffice community... Please, think it over. Kind regards, Riemer Thalen marketing consultant ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Luiz <[email protected]> Date: 2011/4/23 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-marketing] BrOffice product and community will be called LibreOffice To: [email protected] Hi, >> The Brazilian free software community is proud to announce that the >> BrOffice product will be called LibreOffice, which has an international >> community of which we, Brazilian volunteers are active participants and >> contributors. >> > I know that BrOffice has gained quite a good public recognition in Brazil, > so this step is not easy for you. > This issue has been worked here a few months ago. I think personally that the episode involving the extinction of the NGOs contributed to the discussion. A press release made by us ensured that nothing would happen and reassured the market. So the time is right. I do not think we have any damage and there was a bias to adopt the name LibreOffice here. > For LibreOffice it's a great opportunity to show the strength of our > international community and to embrace the people contributing to LibO > in Brazil under our own name. > > This will strengthen our worldwide public recognition to a measurable > degree! > Yes, that's the idea!! >> The office suite BrOffice still remain with this name in version 3.3.x, >> and finally replaced the name from versions 3.4.x. As for the other >> projects developed by Brazilian community as a portal, mailing lists, >> magazine, among many other initiatives already start to adopt the name >> "LibreOffice" in all his works. >> >> > This should be part of the international press release when LibO 3.4.0 will > be announced. > I agree!! > Perhaps we should add a press notice and or an offiicial TDF blog entry on > this topic already now to welcome our co-workers and co-users under > our common name. > > What do you think? > I think its very good. If there is interest we can translate the post published on our website: http://libreoffice.org.br/agora_o_bro_chama_libo (in Portuguese of Brazil). Regards, Luiz Oliveira -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Muntinglaan 11, 9751 PT Haren T 050 5348669, M 0651357148 LinkedIn.com/in/riemerthalen Dit bericht is verzonden vanaf een Linux-PC. Windows-virussen kunnen dus alleen voorkomen in doorgestuurde bijlagen. Als dit bericht niet voor u bestemd is, wilt u het dan terug- sturen en de ontvangen kopie ongelezen vernietigen? Dank u. -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
