Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ames!elroy!gryphon!keithd
From: keithd@gryphon.COM (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Ads on MTV
Message-ID: <9020@gryphon.COM>
Date: 28 Nov 88 05:00:27 GMT
References: <3616@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <11545@cup.portal.com> <856@applix.UUCP> <11718@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: keithd@gryphon.COM (Keith Doyle)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 53

In article <11718@cup.portal.com> ErikG@cup.portal.com (Erik Alexander Gavriluk) writes:
>-  They're on MTV.  Who watches MTV?  The people who buy records.  MTV is 
>basically an advertising medium to sell records--that's why people make
>videos.  Thus, MTV is geared to attract people who buy records.  These
>people are aged 12-21.  

WRONG!  Who watches MTV?  People who tend to spend money on cable TV, *watch*
a lot of TV, and spend a lot of money on a CD stereo and VCR rack.  
Including technophile Dad's with VCR's and very often cameras.  These people 
are in the 21-50 age range and generally have a reasonable amount of money, 
appreciate good sound and visuals (though why they're watching MTV for that 
I don't know, but then again, I'm used to watching the Amiga :-).  In other 
words, a pretty good match for the Amiga (though I would assume not the only 
one). 

>-  These ads are geared for Xmas, of course.  Kiddies can buy a machine that
>lets you put a flying saucer over a hillside for $800, or they can buy a
>Nintendo game system for $100.  Guess what they're gonna find under the tree?

But Dad's are the ones that are going to want and buy Amiga's.  The same
technophiles that bought the CD 6-stack player with super programability
and had as much fun programming that as they do playing the absolute latest
highest tech video games out there.  In other words, boomers.  

>-  "Free VCR".  This one takes the cake.  Ok, this is supposed to be some 
>major enticement to buy the computer.  FIRST- Commodore doesn't even bother
>to mention what you could do with a VCR and an Amiga.  (They couldn't say it
>in 15 seconds anyway...)  So people don't understand the relationship 
>between the two, and are not likely to remember the deal.  SECOND- Most people
>already have a VCR!  Since Commodore doesn't bother to inform them why a 
>second one would be nice, people are even more likely to ignore this.  It's
>like 70% of the households in America have a VCR.  Now, how many homes with
>cable TV have a VCR?  Gotta be like 90%.  So, 90% of the people who see the
>"Free VCR" thing already have one.  And 0% understand what you could do with
>it anyway.

I'd agree with this group of statements.  Not only that, you'd only need a
black and white VCR, as that's all you are going to get when you hook up the 
basic package anyway.  BTW, the local computer store here (one of the largest 
Amiga dealers) claims that of the two $1199 package deals he's been offering 
(the 500/Monitor/VCR/software deal and the 500/Monitor/2nddrive/expRAM deal, 
he's had only 1 person go for the VCR deal so far).  He moves 20-50 500 
systems on an average saturday I'd guess, several walked out while I was
there for about an hour.

>-  These ads don't even bother to show the computer.  Why?

So what's to see?  It looks like a computer.  Better to show what it can 
do that is different than to waste time showing that it looks just about 
like any other computer looks.

Keith Doyle
gryphon!keithd