Ed Brill

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1. 1  David Schaffer http://bloginprogress.us | 3/8/2008 10:12:17 AM

   This is the sort of marketing that impresses other techies but just leaves the business folks confused: I'm just going through a major upgrade from a conventional digital phone system and standalone voice mail to Cisco phone system, Unity and Lotus Domino Unified Communication. I think it will be a great move and worth the pain -- but I sure don't want my business folks thinking that we should have been able to do it with the old phone system just because we have Sametime installed.

1. 2  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 3/8/2008 11:07:20 AM

   What's the guy on the right doing to that server at the end? ;-)

1. 3  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 3/8/2008 11:24:18 AM

   @Alan: I refused to rewind to that point. :-o

1. 4  Bob Balaban http://www.bobzblog.com | 3/8/2008 1:34:03 PM

   Funny! Too bad you couldn't get Dennis Leary to play the part of the boss...

1. 5  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 3/8/2008 6:46:13 PM

   Man, if only they had actually showed someone USING UC2!!!

   Quit telling. Start showing.

1. 6  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 3/8/2008 7:21:39 PM

   IBM has a very nice story to tell here.

   I would especially liked to have seen them using DUCS for cisco and Notes 8.0.1...

   <nudge, nudge>

1. 7  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 3/8/2008 7:22:46 PM

   @2, don't want to know, but i thought it as well.

   Agreed, if you can use it over existing equipment, show it, and make it really OLD equipment.

   I have clients, no wait, IBM has warehouses around the world with old equipment, go dig it up and use it in a commercial.

   I'm with Nathan on this one. Perhaps instead of Lotusphere Idol, you should have opened up for Lotus Viral videos from the attendees or outside parties for submission.

   Got to go add that in Ideajam.net

1. 8  Bruce Elgort http://bruceelgort.com | 3/8/2008 9:32:07 PM

   @Keith,

   People were asked to submit videos for Lotus Salon 2.08 but for some reason I don't recall seeing any of them - you?

1. 9  Bill Malchisky http://www.EffectiveSoftware.com | 3/9/2008 12:36:28 AM

   Appreciate the link, Ed. Thanks. :)

   <donning_end_user_cap>I liked the ad. It got my attention. I like the concept. In the end, I have no idea what UC^2 is. I can use my phones to work with e-mail or something else? How? What does it look like? I am confused as to what this is all about.</donning_end_user_cap>

1. 10  Erik Brooks  | 3/9/2008 7:57:45 AM

   @9 - Ditto. Who was on the focus group for this thing?

1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/9/2008 9:13:42 AM

   Focus group for a viral marketing piece?

1. 12  Bruce Elgort http://ideajam.net | 3/9/2008 9:58:21 AM

   @Ed,

   Yes IT or end users?

1. 13  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 3/9/2008 12:14:30 PM

   @8, missed the salon entirely and hadn't read any blog pieces on it(it was a busy week you know, can't read everything).

   If so, my bad, should have posted the ideas for amateur filmmakers to make for me :-)

   Always next year...

1. 14  Charlie Phillips  | 3/9/2008 12:29:35 PM

   I thought it was great!

   The guy clearing a desktop by smashing his motorcycle into it told me nothing other than the name of the product. I AM SUPERMAN was even worse because at the end of it I didn't even know the name of the product. While the former was at least amusing, there was nothing in either of them to make me want to spend any time investigating what they were about.

   This newest one tells me that I can get my people communicating better, for less money, and without the pain of hardware replacements. THAT would make me interested enough to investigate.

1. 15  Bruce Elgort http://bruceelgort.com | 3/9/2008 12:43:22 PM

   @13 - remember this? { Link }

1. 16  Jay Zeltzer  | 3/9/2008 3:59:47 PM

   This video speaks directly to IBMs coexistence strategy Vs. Microsoft (long history of) rip and replace. "Help" your Microsoft sales rep by showing the last two videos from the following link then show the IBM video. LOB will see the value of the investment protection story from IBM.

   { Link }

1. 17  Gavin Bollard http://dominogavin.blogspot.com/ | 3/9/2008 5:16:49 PM

   Great attention grabbing.

   Not a lot of product info, but I guess that would be for the follow up advert right ??

   It meshes nicely with the myth that "nobody ever gets fired for buying M...."

1. 18  Erik Brooks  | 3/9/2008 7:00:22 PM

   @11 - From IBM marketing? Absolutely. I would think there would be at least *something* done via a focus group, at least to gauge the depth of response.

   I found it amusing, yes, but not enough to perpetuate it in a "viral" fashion. I.E. I don't see anybody e-mailing it to me, IMing it to me ("check this out! lmao!"), etc. For that to happen it needs to be either (1) incredible at an emotional level (funny/touching/etc.), or (2) highly informative.

   I know we all keep fondly thinking of "the olden days", but the Leary videos were viral. Added to YouTube *7 years* after they launched, some of them have had thousands of views. They stand in and of themselves as great pieces of comedy with a big impact at the end:

   "I'm creating a chat room!"

   "Grrrrrrrrrrrrr..."

   Classic.

   Nathan's got a good point: if you actually showed somebody using UC2, it would likely have much more impact. If this is part of a viral marketing *campaign* then I could see it possibly taking off in the future, but in my opinion this video isn't enough to stand on its own. I might mention something about "IBM has this stuff called UC2" in the hallway though, so it's not a total flop -- but only because I happen to read this blog.

1. 19  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 3/9/2008 8:22:25 PM

   "This newest one tells me that I can get my people communicating better, for less money, and without the pain of hardware replacements. THAT would make me interested enough to investigate."

   Really? When no one so much as sends an email, initiates a chat, or makes a phone call in the whole video?

   Personally, all I saw was a couple of guys acting like rejects from Jackass, and someone else laughing at them. It's only if I know that unified communication is about bringing PCs, phones and networks into a single device grid that this makes any sense.

   And even still, I find myself thinking "man, they thought they'd have to replace the LCD panels 'cause they were getting UC2? Not even Microsoft claims that you have to get new MONITORS."

   I mean, taking from a certain point of view, this ad says "people that implement IBM solutions are complete retards."

1. 20  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 3/10/2008 8:28:55 AM

   "I mean, taking from a certain point of view, this ad says 'people that implement IBM solutions are complete retards'" I'd say it actually implies that people who indulge in rip n replace are complete retards! The monitor thing is humour from an extreme PoV, obviously.

   I quite enjoyed the ad myself, although I agree that you'd need a series of them to really explain what UC2 is to the "common man".

1. 21  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 3/10/2008 9:23:29 AM

   @20 - Actually, Ben, the ad suggests that IBM's brand awareness is so bad in the end-user space that these two idiots don't even know what IBM's UC2 is. If they equate unified communications with rip n' replace, then IBM marketing has utterly failed to create end-user awareness. Which is why people make these assumptions.

   I'm not saying this is the ONLY interpretation of the ad. But if you look at it a certain way, it's an indictment of every advertisement from IBM over the last 5 years. It's as if they are making fun of just how much they've failed.

1. 22  Charles F. Phillips  | 3/10/2008 10:09:24 AM

   "Really? When no one so much as sends an email, initiates a chat, or makes a phone call in the whole video?"

   As opposed to the original "I AM SUPERMAN" commercial that didn't even tell you the name of the product? As I recall, later runs had to tell you it was Lotus Notes that because no one even knew what it was if they didn't already know what the R5 symbol meant.

   Back then I learned real fast when asked what I do for a living to not tell people about the "I AM" advert because their first reaction was invariably, "So what is that all about?" They truly had no idea.

   There was nothing "viral" about the "Clear Your Desk" ad because the ONLY place I ever saw references to it was on Lotus blogs. It did at least mention Lotus Notes, but nothing more, so still the viewer learned nothing.

   If I don't know what the advert is about, then I'm not going to waste my time investigating it no matter how funny it was.

   This one is mildly amusing, and yes the two guys are morons, but you do at least learn what the product is about if you pay attention to the Blackberry guy and the closing voiceover.

1. 23  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 3/10/2008 10:27:53 AM

   "As opposed to the original "I AM SUPERMAN" commercial that didn't even tell you the name of the product?"

   Let's be clear... I thought those ads were terrible, too. :-)

   The Lotus brand hasn't had anything approaching a good ad since the Work the Web days. This "UC2 monkeys" ad is no better.

1. 24  Adam Gartenberg http://www.adamgartenberg.com | 3/11/2008 8:18:57 AM

   Thank you everyone for your comments on the video.

   To clarify the goals of this piece: while we certainly would love this to have enough broad appeal that it would spread virally, the target for this video is telephony managers. (And by target, I mean that we will be doing specific marketing campaigns around it aimed at telephony managers.)

   These people know what Unified Communications is already (or at least they'd better!), and the specific goal of this video is to make sure they understand that IBM's approach to UC doesn't require them to throw out their existing solutions and infrastructure just to see the benefits of UC.

   In terms of this approach, vs. one that shows people actually using the technology, that will be coming. As with all campaigns, this is just one piece of the puzzle. We will have videos showing Sametime Unified Telephony in action (just like we do for Sametime today), and in fact you can see demos including some of our existing interaction with some of our partners already ({ Link } and { Link } - although I'll admit these aren't exactly designed to be viral.)

   (And let's face it - if had just showed end users using it, some of you would have liked it better, while we would have gotten comments from the other half of the population shouting "booooring.")

   So by all means, please feel free to keep the comments coming (or to pass them along directly to me). I can assure you they're being read.

1. 25  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 3/11/2008 9:39:20 AM

   So showing the IT coming by someone's desk to tell them about the new UC2 system, and the guy saying "how come you don't have to replace everything on my desk?" and the IT guy saying "no, all this works with the equipment we already have... here just try it... it's already installed automatically for you."

   Nobody proposed that one?

   You coulda hit three audiences in one: 1) the telephony manager who sees that nothing's replaced; 2) the IT support guys who see they don't have to go install something at every desk; and 3) the end users who see that IBM's UC2 is so incredibly easy to use that don't need training sessions and cheat guides.

   I suppose maybe someone would say that wasn't memorable, but it's not like the IT guy and "Bob from Accounting" couldn't have had some funny dialog.

1. 26  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 3/12/2008 9:02:04 AM

   So, compare this video (which is cute, in a frat-boy-gone-bad sort of way) with MS' UC commercials: { Link } and { Link } MS definitely makes the no-rip-and-replace message very explicit in these commercials (though I haven't seen them on TV anywhere).

1. 27  Adam Gartenberg http://www.adamgartenberg.com | 3/12/2008 10:06:33 AM

   @26 Paul - As I commented over on my blog, while Microsoft's message might look similar, it's masking a *very* big difference in the strategies.

   "VoIP as you are" really means you want companies to run DUAL infrastructures while (hopefully) migrating to Microsoft for their phone infrastructure. This is very different than allowing companies to continue to work with the telephony vendors that are strategic for them, while still seeing the benefits of a UC experience on the desktop. We're not asking anyone to run dual phone infrastructures and all the costs and complications that can come from that.

1. 28  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 3/12/2008 11:45:13 AM

   @27 - Huh? So when Microsoft's ads say "don't buy new hardware," that's actually a flat-out LIE!?! I mean, dual infrastructures means new hardware. Unless you already happen to be running dual infrastructures, I guess.

   If they're LYING, then how about an ad that says "Microsoft is lying."

1. 29  Devin Olson http://www.devinolson.net | 3/13/2008 8:57:02 AM

   To paraphrase an old saying about recruiters:

   Q: How can you tell when your Microsoft rep is lying to you?

   A: When his lips are moving.