MarketingViews
FAQs
- What does a mouse, a goblin and a pirate have to do with marketing?
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| See also:- |
Squeak! - Animal
Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market
cartoon:- the
Alternative Adventures of Megabyte the Mouse
PR Strategies:
Remember, the web has no memory!
news etc on MarketingViews,
mice & storage,
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Megabyte the mouse was
created in the summer of 1998 as the editor for our new site (at that time)
called STORAGEsearch.
Over
100 million impressions of the Byte family images (there's a whole bunch of them
now) have been seen by computer readers as of November 2001, on that and other
related sites. |
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Gunnar the king of the Old
Wessex Division of the goblins started out as a character in a children's story
I wrote in February 2000, called
Alexander Woyte and the
Goblins.
Gunnar actually runs a long established business called
Gunnar's Goblin Hammers. |
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Captain Feary the pirate
started out as a character in a children's story I wrote in March 2001, called
Alexander Woyte and the
Pirates.
He was frozen in an ice field a few hundred years ago
while trying to esape from pursuit by the Royal Navy. He defrosted as a result
of global warming and discovers that he has to change his business methods to
accomodate the new realities, such as the fact that his cannon balls bounce off
modern navy ships. So piracy is no longer a reliable way of earning a living. | |
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Squeak! -
Animal Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market
Animal
marketing metaphors are popular in service industries, but you'd be surprised
how many companies have used animals in their marketing of data storage
products and services. The storage market was worth over $150 billion in 2005,
and as it gets bigger - more companies will turn to animal brands to help
differentiate their otherwise bland products and lend them artificial (or
deserving) characters and virtues.
The idea behind this type of
marketing is to suggest positive connotations so it's unlikely that anyone will
choose to associate their products with gremlins. But you may be surprised by
the population of the storage ark.
This reference articles lists all
known companies who have furry marketing brands, and also includes some which
are slimy, scaly and scary too. ...read the article |
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Dear Reader
I
can't deny it. If you look at the masthead, above, for MarketingViews, we do
indeed have a mouse, a goblin and a pirate. In fact they've got names. Going
from left to right, we have Megabyte the mouse, Gunnar the king of the Old
Wessex Division of the goblins, and Captain Feary the pirate.
Oh dear,
I think I've just made things worse...
Actually it gets even worse than
that, because not only do they have names. But they also have their own
individual histories as well. As you can see below.
Before you think
I've completely flipped, (and it wasn't recently - I assure you) I'll return to
answering that very good and excellent question of yours:- what does a mouse, a
goblin and a pirate have to do with marketing?
There are two answers,
and which of them you believe is up to you.
- First... I know from my own experience talking to marketers that even gurus
will often have a different view of a particular situation. It's not that they
disagree about basic theory, but just often can't agree which particular
marketing theory or model is the most appropriate one to use in a given
situation.
I, for example, will usually take an electronic marketing
stance, my wife (who runs a marketing
services company) will often look at strategic issues, or branding, another
friend I know will ask whether anyone did any market research or focus groups,
and does anyone really know what the customer wants? And a naiive marcoms person
who enters the discussion at this stage and mentions "the brochure"
will just get laughed at, because unfortunately that's what most people in IT
companies think marketing is all about. Well, it's not, otherwise you wouldn't
be looking at this web site. Would you?
Marketing is not about the
brochure, and it's not about mice or goblins or pirates, but it's really a lot
more complicated than most people think. And you are probably not going to
easily mistake the mouse/goblin/pirate marketing site with all those other
marketing sites which all look pretty much the same, are you? ...and there's
another reason.
- Second... this is the honest truth... authors get to love their characters,
and sometimes if you're not careful they can take over. I just like these
characters, and having a mouse on my computer sites since 1998 has not done my
readership or bank balance any harm, so I'm just being consistently odd about
this. I enjoy having them around the web site, and I hope they don't interfere
too much with the message.
We can't all be the same. And they
are the constant reminder. |
