Ubuntu Advertising campaign help

[huinke3]

My partner and I are competing in a competitive event in which we need to create an advertising campaign for a company or product. It is an 11 page paper describing the campaign and a 20 minute presentation in front of judges. We decided to create an ad campaign for Ubuntu. We really don't have much as of now but we wanted to let the community know to see what you guys thought of it and if you had any ideas/advice/ links or any sort of help. We would have to include target markets/promotion plans/budget/profits/market research etc... This has to be done in 1 month and if we do good at the state competition we will advance to nationals in Atlanta Georgia where we will present the campaign there. This creates opportunities for scholarships and possibly money to fund this campaign. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank You

Paul Huinker, Isaac Rockafellow

[ryokimball]

Sounds really interesting, actually. I'll help when I can (I have to run to the library right now, though...). I think there was a competition promoting Firefox not long ago... you might want to look that up and see how it went for some inspiration or ideas.

[jmadero]

this sounds really interesting. If you ask for a bit more specific help I think more people might respond. You can easily search "benefits of Gutsy" "benefits of Ubuntu" etc...and probably get a whole list of good things. Another thing is in terms of cost and advertising....I'm not sure if here is the place to focus those questions but if you can specify a bit more what aspect of those you might get something....I'll help with anything that I can.

[FeestBijtje]

I would create an Simple Power Point presentation.
With the following in a specific order:

1. Introduction about Linux/Ubuntu.
2. How to obtain Linux/Ubuntu.
3. How to use the Ubuntu installer.
4. Talk an bit about the Synsaptic/package management.
5. Give some examples about possibility of Ubuntu.
6. Question round. Following with explanation and show it.

Thats how i did it on my Presentation of Linux. Its the best to keep it simple as possible.

[Oxygen]

I for one, would like to see videos of this presentation.

[huinke3]

http://www.deca.org/pdf/ADC-event.pdf

This gives more detailed information about the event.

[Freston]

That's actually very interesting!

Have you defined a target audience yet?

[isaacTR]

Hi, I'm Isaac, the other person working on this project. I'm currently working on a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to get some initial brainstorming. I don't know whole lot about ubuntu, so I would be very glad to hear what others have to add. I also apologize if I am misinformed about some things, again, my knowledge is somewhat limited.

My current (very) rough draft:

Strengths- It's free. Updates occur frequently. Safety- there is a very low probability of acquiring a virus. Reliability- there are few crashes when running linux/ubuntu. The community- over one million posts per year on the forums and grassroots advertisement that already occurs. What else?

Weaknesses- Mainstream compatibility- Some games and software often do not support linux. It's new- many people fear or don't see the need to change. Information Fragmentation- I noticed this especially on the "Ubuntu Catalogue" page. It lists the partners, but it would also help to have an easily accessible page on the main Ubuntu site that lists common applications, uses, etc.

Opportunities- Windows has had several screw ups in the past year. The Vista release was thoroughly lack-luster and targeting some of those upset users could work quite well.
Dell recently began carrying laptops that come pre-installed with Ubuntu. Having such a well known name backing a product can significantly increase the potential market.
Finally, continued development. It should continue to get better and better from here, building on success and weeding out problems where they arise.

Threats- Other than the continued popularity of other OS's and the potential that their upgrades and advancements outpace Ubuntu's, I can't easily see many outside threats.


Now, where do you think Ubuntu should advertise to hit certain markets? What do you think should be the target market? Desktops? Servers? Both? Particular demographics? Why?

I really would appreciate all suggestions, and thank anyone for taking the time to help.

-Isaac

[jmadero]

I will continue thinking through this over the following days but here is some things to add to "threats"

Profit gouging companies are going out of there way to prevent open source from succeeding. Look into current lawsuits against open source--Microsoft just opened over 200 recently. Also look into how many companies refuse to open up their code for open source to work with (if you look at some of the larger drivers for linux you'll see how many of them are made from scratch....sound, video, webcams, scanners....most companies refuse to help.

It is extremely unlikely that Windows or Apple will outpace advancements in any Linux distro (or open source in general). This is because any developer can slightly change it (or any non programming computer interested person can submit a recommendation) that will completely alter the functionality and make it that much cooler. If you look at the companies that have put out cool stuff, no matter how simple, often times it is open source (look into the tab feature of internet browsers).

Strengths-

The ease of use for Ubuntu easily beats windows at this point. This wasn't true until recently (about the last year-year and a half) but now for most software packages it's really as easy as going into package manager (easy to find, system-system administration- synaptic package manager. In here you'll find almost any package that "most" people will need -- some of the more advanced packages that are under development still won't be found here. That means no more tedious searches through different websites searching for .exe's.

Not only is it free but by supporting Linux (any distro) you are really supporting a great cause. There are thousands of developers around the world who work incredibly hard for free (or almost free) -- any support is based on simply appreciation for hard work not being forced to by Microsoft or Apple.

Weaknesses

Under what you have I would make a note that being "google friendly" helps tremendously for almost any linux problem, especially Ubuntu as it is quickly becoming one of the most popular Linux distros ever

I also might add that some things at initial install can be ....less than incredibly easy. I had to spend some time getting wireless to work, I know many people who have video cards that are not fully supported so install was harder for them (if you look into linux newbie section you'll see a few "HELP CAN'T INSTALL....")



As for who should be targeted, that's really up to you guys I think after you see what Ubuntu has to offer (and to know what it has to offer I really think you should install and dual boot with whatever OS you currently have). I still have XP installed but probably only use it once a month. If it were my project I would be targeting grade schools, high schools and public college campuses. The benefit to the state or the country is free, plus supporting ingenuity and just creative problem solving (when a problem does occur in linux it takes a little patience at times to work through it, but it is almost always solveable and if not someone is usually willing to help work through it). That's just my opinion though, truly think that you should check out Ubuntu, including just some of the visually pleasing things, since often times to advertise something you need to show off the visual stuff (look at how successful Apple has been at doing this).

Hope this helps, feel free to send me a private message and I can give you an AIM SN or some other easier way to get help.

[FeestBijtje]

Great articles. I am only worried about the "development" state. Since I see ubuntu as Windows Vista for Linux.

I will work on an own article on ubuntu how I think about it. And ofcourse with some general information about it.

And ofcourse i will be helping you out of the burning fire.