[Linux-aus] Wrong medium, wrong market

[Jeff Waugh]

<quote who="Jason King">

> The upcoming lca conference would be a good opportunity to get a few shots
> of hundreds of normal people all proclaiming their favourite operating
> system.

Why is it a good idea for Linux Australia to spend its money this way? What
benefit does television advertising have for LA's constituents (users and
developers of FOSS)? What kind of message could LA deliver that would help
its constituents and be relevant to a television audience at the same time?

Sorry, this just seems like a colossal waste of time and money to me. Not
just because there's no coherent and useful message that we could deliver
[1], but because television audiences are so entirely irrelevant to LA, and
its goals as an organisation.

It is not LA's responsibility to answer Microsoft's brand advertising. As
our industry becomes more relevant to the consumer market, companies will
step up to the plate to do that. Our audience - as in, Linux Australia's
audience - is something else entirely.

The kind of market that LA should be targeting (if at all) is early adopters
of information technology. You *won't* get to them (us!) via television. We
are a tough demographic to crack, and hopefully we're smart enough to grok
that conventional advertising is not going to be effective for people like
us. Right?

*If* there is some consensus that LA needs to do more brand awareness and
advocacy, then that is the market to go for. Not our collective theoretical
Mums.

- Jeff

[1] Unless it expressed something enormously broad like information freedom,
but how many people who watch TV would even begin to see relevance in that?

-- 
linux.conf.au 2006: Dunedin, New Zealand               http://linux.conf.au/
 
    "I'm just mucking round down the shallow end of the literary pool, I
                          suppose." - Mick Molloy