[libreoffice-marketing] RE: LibreOffice branding and marketing

Hi everyone,


This mail is a seed of discussion, from marketing
professional.


My fellow, Shinji Enoki, had met Mr. Chris Kruppa
in the event "Agile tour Osaka" in Japan.

Chris is a marketing specialist, and a LibreOffice
user (great!).

He gave us a very worth advice for us about our
branding and marketing from his professional point
of view.  We, Japanese community want to share it
all of you, and Chris allowed.

Chris: Thanks!



Please remind: Chris doesn't feed the list, so
if you want tell some to Chris, please CC him
(his address is in the mail).


His advice is pasted as follows:

-----------
Please see some feedback below for improving the brand. In general I
can say, that Libre Office liberately oushes itself into a niche
market, where it in my opinion doesn't need to be. This is a strategic
decision, but I believe, but MS Office is not superior to Libre Office
and therefore Libre Office can be also advertised to the mass market:

- You can see this on the start page of Libre Office - Why do you say
"...the community has waited." Everybody has waited for. Please
consider, each pc or mac or linux user in the world needs an Office
Suite. Libre Office is cheaper than MS Office, but offers nearly same
functionality. Still it is only in the community. Maybe, there is a
reason, but I would encourage users from all over.

- I have seen on several occasions, that it is still called the Libre
Office Project. Why? Libre Office just released version 4. This is a
mature project and can be used without flaws. I would remove the
project. "Project" sounds unfinished, not done yet, we are working on
that, etc.

- As you are trying to offer Libre Office for download and ask for
developers on the same website, I believe, the community aspect is
pretty strong for many visitors. And community aspect might give the
impression to people, it is sloppy and not a good quality. Same as
wikipedia: It is not really 100% accepted, because everybody can
change it. That there is still a wonderful quality assurance system
behind: Nobody sees. Libre Office might give in it's current form, the
same impression. Why not separate the download of the stable version
from the developer community.

- Focus on  two or three more strengths of LO over MSO besides being
free - for example, you have a portable version. Isn't that great? How
about setting the goal to build the first usable mobile word
processor? Etc. Focus on features more, than on community and free
aspect.

- I do not know about your goals and your current numbers, so it is a
bit hard to give more ideas, but I hope the above gives yo an idea.
Maybe you could partner up with universities and schools, Android and
MacOSX to promote it further. But maybe there are efforts as this
already.

Ok, that's it for the moment, would that help you? Was it, what you
were looking for?
I am happy to give a presentation (via skype) in front of some people,
if you want - but I would need to know more about your goals, your
vision and current strategy.


Thanks, Chris


-- 
Naruhiko Ogasawara (naruoga@gmail.com)

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