How about simply the idea of marketing Softimage? Not marketing it to Max or Maya users to get them to switch, or as a way to get them to buy suites. Just market it to anyone looking to purchase a 3d app period. Basic equal marketing for an equal app.
Simply adding the Softimage suite from Japan to the rest of the world would be a big step forward. -PG Phalangically transmitted through an iPad to your cerebral cortex. On Sep 11, 2012, at 7:08 PM, Maurice Patel <[email protected]> wrote: > Rolling up my sleeves :) > If you don't know me, I (still) head Product/Industry Marketing for M&E and > have posted a couple of times on the forum about our strategy. > First. I'd like to respond to the link to the campaign item that started this > thread http://yfrog.com/h0t6exxtj: > Although I can't say I am particularly fond of that diagram myself (it's > rather ugly), it actually came out of a study commissioned from a third party > research company that hired 3ds Max and Maya animators to evaluate what (if > any) value Softimage, MotionBuilder and Mudbox offered to Maya and 3ds Max > users as a means of determining the value of Suites - so we used it in the > Suites Campaign. > The specific purpose of the campaign is to encourage 3ds max and Maya users > to buy Suites; so yes it focuses only on the areas of these applications that > offer significant value above and beyond what Maya and 3ds max can already > do. It is not meant to be an exhaustive description of those applications > capabilities. > I know Autodesk Marketing is often hard to fathom - heck it is for us too, > but if we want Softimage to survive we (the marketing team) need to work with > the system not against it. We are not going run a campaign to switch Maya or > 3ds max users to Softimage - that would kill our business and create a > massive customer outcry for no real gain. Any expectation that we would do > that is unrealistic. So, if we are not going to do that, then we need to find > a better way to get people to adopt Softimage and, while not perfect, Suites > has been our best bet yet. > Given that, take a pause and ask objectively "where is Autodesk's real > opportunity here?" Is it to run a campaign encouraging Softimage users to add > Maya (or 3ds max) to their toolset? Or vice versa? Which would (1) be the > better business decision and (2) get Softimage in the hands of more users? > You will probably reach the same conclusion we did. > In terms of overall exposure, I am not going to deny that Softimage is less > visible than when it was part of Avid. Then Softimage was run as its own > entity and there was 100% focus on one(ish) product (ish because there was > actually a few more than one). That is not the case now. Autodesk runs its > business pretty much as one centralized operation for the sale of efficiency > and scale and so M&E competes with hundreds of other Autodesk products for > mind share when it comes to marketing investment and visibility - and M&E is > not the largest part of Autodesk's business. This dictates exactly how much > coverage M&E gets and how many and what products we can feature on things > like the home page. Oddly enough though, the bulk of our web traffic actually > goes directly to the product pages so it can be argued that this specific > point is moot anyway. But yes, visibility is reduced and suffers as a > function of a given product's ranking in the Autodesk product stack. > Believe me, I have similar discussions with Flame users who also believe we > have abandoned marketing Flame. Deep down most of this is related to our > centralized marketing processes discussed above and not to any individual. > This is not going to change nor is it clear that any alternative could be > successful and/or profitable. Or at least not in the sense one might expect. > In the long run Suites and Cloud Services are changing the way Autodesk views > products but not in the traditional sense. My team's constant challenge is > therefore to figure out how to increase visibility within the systems we have > - be it through more aggressive social media strategies (why we launched the > Softimage Facebook page) or other methods. While the good old days have > nostalgic value (and yes we remember when Discreet Logic had its own website, > as did Alias and Softimage, with their own dedicated Marketing resources), we > have long realized we can never go back to those days. The battles have move! d on to new battlefields - but it does continue! > Maurice > > Maurice Patel > Autodesk : Tél: 514 954-7134 > > > <winmail.dat>
