I’m using Opera as my primary browser for last 2 days – it’s nice. It’s usable but I won’t be a fan. I simply don’t like it’s UI.
Opera made nice work with it’s 8th release, but long-awaited marketing campaign is terrible. I hardly can find words to describe what those guys made. This super-man looks so bad, like from 80’ties… and it’s everywhere.
Quoting jesus_x:
I thought maybe it was just a bad choice of stock photography… It’s a theme
I really can’t imagine the brand built on such theme. Who is a target? Old fans of old TV shows like A-Team? Oh… Opera PR team failed this exam – in opposition to Opera coders and UI folks.
Update: Get The Facts II – Microsoft must be proud. Their PR teams probably are cooperating to invent the most stupid way to promote their products. Go super-man! With those dinosaurs from Microsoft you can create nice cartoon!
10 replies on “PR from different planet”
Yep, that super-man is strange. but the fact is, that everyone talks about him. Maybe that was the aim of Opera PRs? 😉
Exactly: nobody is indifferent to this guy. He makes me smile and I think this campaing is good in its own tawdry, silly style :).
Condom [http://www.idg.pl/news/77845.html] is definitely better than Opera’s super-men 😉
quiris: In my opinion, condom is extremly better. It fits the style of “fresh” ads, with some clear target. It’s for young people, Photos have great colors, are nice and nobody will have problem to understand them.
Beside that the news you linked is absolutely tendencional and proves that author has no idea what he is writing about…
Of course, everyone can have it’s own opinion, but for me, this super-man is totally outdated, and it’s the worst “brand” I saw in a long time. Sad, because Opera has it’s red O which is very nice, and does not fit to this super-trooper at all.
Additionally, look at the Apple iGirl, MacOSX ads, iPod and so on. Apple is the best brand in my opinion, and they’re doing extremly well job to promote their products as stylish,modern, adult and fashion. Imho Firefox logo with it’s ads is going the same way, but of course we’re not as good.
Microsoft with it’s Longhorn themes, and StartSomthing is also walking the same road of stylish themes.
Opera with it’s Super-man is walking in oposite direction – backwards.
quiris – you know that it was just a picture made by one of the thousands of users of spreadfirefox.com? It’s not an official campaign, even if the IDG.pl tells you otherwise.
I myself have a small question.
Why do you care what Opera’s marketing campaign looks like?
Clearly, it’s not directed at you, a Firefox project leader. As such, excuse the bluntness, but you have no reason whatsoever to declare whether or not it’s a good campaign. You’re not an ordinary user, and you cannot know if he will like it or will be convinced by it.
Please go back to planning Firefox world domination, and leave Opera’s PR folks alone.
Jarek: As you may know, in real world there is no person in one role only.
Beside of my work for Firefox, I do my work around usability, and marketing stuff in my daily job. I know this issue, and I strongly believe that I understand the mechanisms around the PR and marketing issues.
Saing that, I feel that I have my right to judge Opera’s campaign especially I find it absolutely dramatic.
Believe me or not, I really would like to see Opera’s gain in market share. Not only because of IE, but also because I’m very interested in how properitary software will be able to asymilize in the world where every common application is avaible for free and this free version is high quality. (another example can be Linspire, BitKeeper, Oracle) But that’s a different topic for a long post 🙂
Overall, I’m very disappionted because of so many promises that Opera 8 will have a great campaign. If this is what Opera calls “huge promotion campaign” than I’m more than sure that their PR team is living it their own small world, not connected with the real one.
Gandalf, you are way too confident in your opinions. It is nothing more, than *only* *your* point of view. As for me, who also have relations with marketing and psychologic aspects in it, this not-so-really-serious campaign is a very smart move – to name one reason, Brown put it right: nobody is indifferent for this guy. And I doubt you will find many people disgusted like you, so that would prevent them from checking out this browser.
Agree with one fact – this campaign could be done in plenty of ways – also in the style you prefer, but another one has been chosen and you may not like it personally, however I personally rate it high. De gustibus non…
Anyway, ranking.pl will show how effective the new marketing campaign is.
ranking.pl won’t show it. Polish market, as you may know, is a really small thing… I’m more interested in world market, but sure. Time will show.