Hi Tim, On 27/07/06, Tim Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Speaking as someone who gets paid to do market research, the problem here is clearly one of unclear direction from the client on the target market.
Great to hear from you and it's good to see that more and more people with professional marketing experience are taking an interest in the team. I think a more fundamental question needs to be answered here: who is the client you're talking about? Okay, we all know that Canonical drives much of the project and puts huge amounts of money into it, but it's worth noting that Canonical is not Ubuntu and Ubuntu is not Canonical. If, as a community, we see an opportunity with a certain market segment, we're free to pursue it. Certainly, though, it'd be great to have a chat with the Canonical guys about where they want to focus and how we can combine efforts.
Is the *-buntu product and brand targeted at consumers (students, mothers, etc.) or at business (SMB, corporate) or government agencies (schools, libraries) or is it targeted at hardcore linux programmers (specifically to attract their support and contributions)???
It doesn't have to be an either/or situation. However, if we can meaningfully identify market segments to target, then we should adjust the way we communicate with them and what information we gather from them.
What John has done is a great start, and I think has approach is spot on ASSUMING the target market is corporate.
Why limit our thinking to one target market?
However, if the target is "hardcore linux programmers" it may not be the best solution. There is a tension here that is unresolved.
There's no tension that I see. While we do need to cater for different target markets, we need to be very careful to maintain the very special mix of community and commercial that Ubuntu has achieved. Ubuntu is proving itself in thousands of different ways and, from what I can see, is developing a reputation through word of mouth and naturally ocurring PR (Canonical's PR department is virtually non-existant and they don't hire an external agency, so any positive press coverage arises because Ubuntu impresses people). I feel we should be targetting different markets in subtle ways. We should aim to support people's decision making process, when choosing between Ubuntu and the alternatives, and so approach them in the way they understand etc. We don't want, though, to throw out the benefits of what we have already by needlessly dividing the Ubuntu brand. -- Matthew Revell www.understated.co.uk -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
