HOLY CRAP! A full page Lotus AD in Wired Magazine
October 21 2009 10:00:00 AM
Add/Read Comments [9]
As winter quickly approaches here in Toronto, the real story may be that hell has actually frozen over.
As I was sipping my morning hot chocolate and flipping through the latest edition of my favourite magazine Wired, I almost spit out my multi-grain bagel as I stumbled upon this...
That's right. A full page advertisement for Lotus in a major magazine. WELL DONE!!!
If you read my post about the Lotus Knows airline videos, you'll may recall I didn't find it very affective.
"Honestly it does not hook me into wanting to find out more. If you don't already know what Lotus is, this does not tell you, and it does not make me curious enough to go find out." and "I think the failing is that it does not say what is in it for me, which is one of the main things an ad should do. "
So how does this new ad stack up?
It very clearly says (not shows unfortunately, but says) "delivers collaboration and social networking capabilities to a web-based platform". Excellent. That gives me a general idea about what the ad is for, and I keep on reading.
However, I still think it falls short by not hooking me in via any personal connection. Yes, it does say "So you and everyone else on your team can use the cloud as an excellent place to get things done". But get what done? How is it better than what we do today? What problem does it solve? What benefit does it provide? Why do I need one? etc.
Compare the Lotus ad to two others found later in the magazine for Microsoft and Citrix. Both of these make an immediate personal connection via imagery.
The first is for Excel (Office) and tells me that if I know how to budget properly, I can afford a night out. I like it, but some of you may be thinking "Well that is not a business product, it's for consumers". Ok, so let's look at the second then for Citrix GoToAssist. It says "lets you view and control your customer's computer's online, so you can use your expertise to instantly fix the problem". Bam! They hit you with a very clear benefit statement vs the fluffy "get things done".
I'm not trying to be overly critical. I think it is GREAT that Lotus is advertising. However, in this one man's opinion, the ADs are not as affective as they could be given that they are final running a campaign, and I hope my reviews of them can help shape future improvements.
Very cool to see though, and it is certainly a move in the right direction.
Thoughts?
As I was sipping my morning hot chocolate and flipping through the latest edition of my favourite magazine Wired, I almost spit out my multi-grain bagel as I stumbled upon this...
That's right. A full page advertisement for Lotus in a major magazine. WELL DONE!!!
If you read my post about the Lotus Knows airline videos, you'll may recall I didn't find it very affective.
"Honestly it does not hook me into wanting to find out more. If you don't already know what Lotus is, this does not tell you, and it does not make me curious enough to go find out." and "I think the failing is that it does not say what is in it for me, which is one of the main things an ad should do. "
So how does this new ad stack up?
It very clearly says (not shows unfortunately, but says) "delivers collaboration and social networking capabilities to a web-based platform". Excellent. That gives me a general idea about what the ad is for, and I keep on reading.
However, I still think it falls short by not hooking me in via any personal connection. Yes, it does say "So you and everyone else on your team can use the cloud as an excellent place to get things done". But get what done? How is it better than what we do today? What problem does it solve? What benefit does it provide? Why do I need one? etc.
Compare the Lotus ad to two others found later in the magazine for Microsoft and Citrix. Both of these make an immediate personal connection via imagery.
The first is for Excel (Office) and tells me that if I know how to budget properly, I can afford a night out. I like it, but some of you may be thinking "Well that is not a business product, it's for consumers". Ok, so let's look at the second then for Citrix GoToAssist. It says "lets you view and control your customer's computer's online, so you can use your expertise to instantly fix the problem". Bam! They hit you with a very clear benefit statement vs the fluffy "get things done".
I'm not trying to be overly critical. I think it is GREAT that Lotus is advertising. However, in this one man's opinion, the ADs are not as affective as they could be given that they are final running a campaign, and I hope my reviews of them can help shape future improvements.
Very cool to see though, and it is certainly a move in the right direction.
Thoughts?
It should be targeting consumers. Consumers are workers who use email at work. These are the same workers who hate Notes and keep pushing their IT departments to migrate.
How about a message like "Lotus Notes knows how to make email fun" and a screen shot of Notes 8.5 with some fun side bar plugin?
Or "Lotus Notes knows your daughter's recital is tomorrow at 6pm" and a screen shot of Notes 8.5 federated calendar showing your Google family calendar next to your business appointments.
The Citrix ad is a lot more effective than "having meeting in the cloud". Saw the same ad on a CTA train in Chicago. Wonder how effective it is.
The other difference is accessibility. The Citrix ad clearly says "Gotoassist". I type that in the browser and get to a page when I can sign up, try for free - start using it.
The Lotus ad says nothing. That's great, Lotus, that YOU know how to have a meeting in the cloud. What do I do with it? Where do I go to have that meeting?
Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Lotus has everything it needs in place, even funding for a marketing campaign. It just doesn't know how to use it.
Hell hasn't frozen over just yet.... The Detroit Lions aren't going to win the Superbowl.... it's just dropped a few degrees! lol
@1 I agree that whether at work or at home, the target audience is still "people".
As for showing Lotus Notes, this was about LotusLive, so that would not make sense, but even saying "With LotusLive your team can X or Y" would be better than "get things done" in my opinion.
No, of course, showing Notes wouldn't have made sense. I didn't mean it for THIS specific ad.
But showing or mentioning LotusLive would have made sense.
"Lotus knows how to have a meeting in the cloud. --- LotusLive".
Hot chocolate for breakfast? :-)
I enjoyed the detail of your narrative-- the hot chocolate, the multi-grain bagel....
Tho I suspect you were having leftover cold pizza and chugging milk from the carton, but that would not have sounded as good :)
WOuld having people's heads -- not just "faceless" conversatoin bubbles have made a difference? Both the other ads had people in them.
Hopefully Kristen L. is reading this, too ... ;-) Mary Beth - I think the people/faces would make a significant difference. The point is to move from "marketing" to the IT managers to marketing to the end users... (You've probably heard may say, "think Viagra" -- market to the end user who can't buy it directly, so that they come to the "supplier" asking for it - not for the competition... Not sure if that makes me an ED doctor or a drug pusher, though...). Anyway - faces would probably help make more of a personal connection.
I'd also like to start seeing more of the variety of ads/products that I've seen "peeks" of -- seems like the LotusLive meeting ad is the only one used in print so far.
Oh yeah - and Alan -- isn't "winter" and "Toronto" redundant?
Mary Beth, as Alex, Tim, myself (and a thousand others) have pointed out, you have to target "people". I don't care if those people are the IT Manager or not. An AD should make you want one of whatever they are selling. Sure that is easy with an iPhone, but it's also possible with software.
As highlighted above, the Lotus AD says "get stuff done", the Citrix AD says "lets you view and control your customer's computer's online, so you can use your expertise to instantly fix the problem". Which of those do you instantly relate to?