Hi Chip - appreciate the response.
Just to clarify I'm just trying to contribute a little, I have no skills in coding or art or game making at all but I really believe in the Pandora and when the subject of ads came up I thought I'd throw in 2 cents as its an area I work in - hope you don't mind.
I certainly agree with you to some extent. Print advertising - especially in games mags is an expensiive proposition, especially when you consider that a single ad placement is largely useless (the 3 R's of advertising Repitition, Remind, Repeat mean that you have to sustain an ad campaign over a period of time for it to be effective and push people to action.) I used to work in the games industry and print ads would come in at £5k - £12k depending on the individual publication, obviously you get a discount for a series but its a big pinch.
To your point about advertising being worthwhile - I guess I maybe got a little too hung up on
print ads. In some places I think it could have a demonstrable efftect - effective advertsing means you target where you think the effect will be the most - ads in Retro Gamer magazine in the UK (a widely available and well read pub in the UK) would likely have a good impact because of the like-minded audience (but should always be backed up be strong/positive reviews and coverage in the editorial, a mix of PR and advertising if you will.)
It would be interesting to know what Craig thought the impact those GP2X ads in Games magazine had - unfortunately the call to action on that ad was not linked to that particular magazine (i.e. there was no dedicated page link directing readers to a particular page so you can measure hits, leads and sales caused by that ad.) so it may be difficult to tell and if you ask consumers often they can't remember where they saw the product so you really have to capture them at the point of entry.
Your point: "Do you think that there are tens of thousands of other people who would be similarly excited by that possibility? Excited enough to spend $340 for it? Maybe there are, but how would you go about finding them?"
Well Amiga gaming is what drew me into the GP2X (even though I never got it working but there we are
) but to another chap it might be the fact its a tiny UMPC, to another Homebrew, to another a small internet ready wireless device - this is what I mean by the "proposition". There would be little point advertising in RetroGamer saying "Pandora - Open source UMPC" people would say "Well so what?" but if you say "Quake 3, Neo Geo, PSX - all in the palm of your hand" thats a different message for the same product. The UMPC message might work well for a Linux pub for instance. I guess this one's easier for me as the process of marketing IS pretty much the idenification of those people who your product might appeal to and presenting them with a message that draws them to buy.
However I digress (again
with the Pandora, a Guerilla Marketing campaign, using strong word of mouth, sneaky little Google ad word campaigns etc would seem the most appropriate. If Pandora can garner good, positive reviews when launched you'll be in a good place for a while. I'm just not sure that will be enough to sustain momentum when the device is say 6 months old there is X new similar device out from X manufacturer that everyone is hyped about.
Targetted marketing does not have to be expensive, especially if you are a "small fella" like OpenPandora. Forget CES, E3 and all that jazz - we know it costs a bomb and is built around the budgets of major companies like EA, Sony and Microsoft. You can do an awful lot with say £5k (I know there are no margins around right now but just saying), some Google ads, a press day/launch and some banner ads on targetted retro gamers/UMPC web sites (which you can measure and pull if they don't work) together with all the good PR stuff. Yes there is a lot of competition out there but that's almost why a clear message and proposition are important as someone who is thinking "Hmmm I want to get me a UMPC or new gaming device right now", Pandora should be in there fighting for a piece of that "mind share". Its not a case of convincing them to buy something they don't want but presenting your case clearly so they understand what the product is all about and can make an informed decision as to whether the Pandora will be included in their mental shortlist based on their internal buying criteria, if you see what I mean.
Interestingly I'm working on a lot of "Influencer Marketing" right now whereby you take a product or solution, identify the influencers in a particular market (those "voices" in a particular area that are seen as trusted opinions by a community) and work with them to, if not to directly endorse your product, then at least endorse the idea. You might say well we're already doing that with Engadget blah blah but the interesting thing is that your influencers in a given market are rarely the people you think they are (for me that is Analysts like Gartner and IT pubs). Influencer marketing is cheap in that there is little cost but involves a
lot of ground work to identify and work with those people/orgs/publcations or whatever they might be.
However, another great rambling reply sorry
. The fact is, as you allude to, the most important factors is the potential customer base (only the devs can really forecast this based on their own experience, the performance of similar products and "gut feel")
and the supply chain; there is no point creating demand for thousands of units if the devs can't get them out the door - that just annoys people (as shown here with the preorder situation - no blame btw but its a fact that there is some annoyance out there). I do think it has the ability to transcend its current niche despite the relatively high cost,
if they sort the supply chain out and engage in some targetted marketing...hell I'd even help out as more people interested means more devs which means more great games and apps for me and the rest of the community
and don't get me wrong, I want the best developed, most solid, bugfree product they can make
I'd also like to say great job - whoever it was who suggested you to be the PR guy had his head screwed on - clear, unbiased, accurate (as far as possible) info is much appreciated
Anyway - its the 15th so hopefully we'll get some updates in the next couple of days - happy Pandora!
