Marketing...

[Thomas Mathai]

I am curious to see what the marketing for Red will be like.

We know that without any marketing, Red has quite a buzz around it.

It would seem to make sense that the marketing would be as unorthodox as the camera itself.

It seems odd that both film and HD camera makers use print ads of their cameras and then wait til a trade show to show off what the camera can do.

Then of course they're showing off to people who already had a sneak peek, or have been following whatever blogs, forums, rumor sites, etc. It seems the WOW factor is gone.

Why not take a trick or two from the pharmaceutical industry and market directly to an movie going audience.

Sure they won't be buying RED or any other high end camera, but they are the intended eyeballs for the finished movies made with any of these cameras.

I can see a teaser trailer now, with Jim Jannard in some sort of alienish Oakley-like armor, with his RED army behind him, giving his best Mel Gibson imitation, ala Braveheart "Unlease Hell!"

Then give the camera to some big directors, like BMW Films did. Bunch of short films by whomever wants to play in 4k.

If Microsoft can bring out James Cameron to sing the praises of Windows Media, I'm sure there is a Hollywood director who'd do the same for Red.

Sure it would be those who say, why market to the audience, instead of the filmmaker?

They never heard of Arri, Panavision, or Thomson. They have no clue that Sony, Panasonic or Canon even makes anything besides what they see at Best Buy.

That may be true, but audiences like to see cool stuff. They enjoy being wowed.

Imagine how wowed they'd be seeing something cool, shot with a 4k revolutionary digital cinema camera.

I also think audiences can help create demand for more movies to be shot with digital cinema cameras, especially if they like what they see.

Kodak has put out a few trailers of their own, to show how great and unique film still is.

At least it'll look better than the fruit shots we see on the other demos.

Well I'm done with my mischief, and off to bed.

[acrochordon]

What, you don't like fruit shots? Seriously, my next whole straight to DVD movie will be of fruit shots.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage...s_dvx-100.html

[Greg Lowry]

Curious to see what RED marketing will be like? Your definition of marketing is way too narrow. RED marketing began months ago.

[taubkin]

Good one Greg! That´s what I was going to say.

By the way, Thomas, why do you think we´re here talking about an prototype camera in a red colored forum?

[Gibby]

Greg, you touched on an interesting point…

Getting the word out to your potential end user demographic via forums, articles, and PR can be included when defining the elements of a broad definition of marketing. Doesn’t all marketing and sales center around educating potential users about how/when/where a product can benefit their business?

If you’re trying to market snow cones to arctic dwellers, or space heaters to desert nomads, it’s a hard sell! But, if you are bringing a product to market that is progressive, affordable, and solves a multitude of workspace issues/problems/desires, the product effectively sells itself – if you can spread the word effectively to the potential adopters of the technology.

So how do you spread the word about your new product? Many ways: buy advertisement space, exhibit at trade shows & expos, introduce it to Internet special interest forums, and establish your own web site. This is the age of rapid communication: Internet, TM, mobile phones, etc. Word that used to take months or weeks to spread can now spread geometrically in seconds! Viral marketing is a critical success factor in this age of lightning-speed communication. Your product must solve an existing problem for the potential end users and adopters, or you’re wasting your time. You must have a good development team, and deliver on your proposed product features and quality, or ultimately your broad marketing efforts will fail. Your end users and adopters must feel that you are concerned with their success, not simply trying to sell them something. You must also be adequately funded in order to raise user confidence. A charismatic founder who has a history of business success is a major plus to any marketing effort (Richard Branson, etc.).

In view of all of the above, here is my assessment of how RED measures up:

The starting point is that RED has a progressive product that is positioned to solve existing shortcomings in the production workflow of convergent motion media. The timing is right and users are hungry for a workflow solution like RED. It is also projected to be very affordable – a tremendous amount of ROI value for your outlay. Being affordable, progressive, and having a wide utilitarian value automatically spreads the demographic of the potential users. RED has recruited a very good development and management team, a critical factor in success. Funding for operation and development is not an issue with RED – they are well backed. RED definitely has a charismatic founder in Jim Jannard. He’s colorful, has a history of success, personable, knows how to manage an effort, and has the courage to take risks. Risk and return are inseparably connected in any enterprise. The other RED management and development team members were hand selected for their personalities, resumes, passion, and attitudes. RED now has their web site fleshed in, and it gets better all the time. The core of any marketing effort is a decent web site. All other marketing is simply “sizzle” that sends customers to the “steak” (web site). RED has been exhibiting at nearly every major expo since announcing the product: NAB, Cine Gear, and next is IBC (September). RED gets an “A” for their efforts in spreading the word via Internet forums. Viral marketing is potentially the most effective form of marketing, but a company must have all their other marketing ducks in a row, as listed above, or viral marketing can backfire miserably. Oakley/Jannard have been masters of viral marketing over the past 25 years, but what’s often overlooked is that their viral marketing has succeeded because they backed it up with giving their users what they wanted/needed, and all the other necessary factors I listed above.

Summary: When was the last time you had a billionaire CEO interact on an Internet forum with you, on a grassroots level? In the combined film/TV production industry how many product introductions have been patterned along the same lines as the course RED has taken? How many CEOs of film/TV equipment production companies have been doing 30 years of hands on work with the type of equipment they are now developing and marketing? When was the last time you had the opportunity to acquire affordable new equipment that may allow you a significant leap forward in your media production business? In a broad sense, RED has been marketing since last December when they announced the camera system, via ads, PR, Internet forums, and expos. Why wouldn’t they follow the proven success formula of Oakley: listen closely to the target market, give them what they want/need, place ads, generate PR, develop a web site, display at expos, and most importantly, be perceived as core, genuine, and “one of them” by the target users and adopters. RED has “taken it to the streets”, or in this case “taken it on the set”. Bottom line: there are possibly no other founders/companies on the planet that could bring to the table the combination of insight, execution, and performance that Jannard/Oakley and the RED team have.

RED is passionate about their new company and products. Their broad information spreading efforts just give me more confidence in the company. Someone can devise the best product on the planet – but if they don’t know how to get the word out to potential users, they have essentially failed in their enterprise. Those of us that have reserved RED cameras are obviously stoked to get their new product into our businesses, but we should also be happy about each new person that reserves a RED camera, because that puts RED as a company one more important step up the success ladder, and it also expands our individual user networking base for when we want to produce multi-camera projects using RED. We’ll know where to find our B Camera, C Camera, and on and on. Yeah, RED is marketing to us, but to me it’s a no-brainer purchase, so I’ve welcomed it with open arms.

Disclaimer: Though I’ve known Jim Jannard for some time, and Oakley has supported many of the television series I have been associated with, I have never been, and am not now an employee of RED, Oakley, or Jim Jannard. I’m just an experienced media production veteran who connects the dots easily on what went before and what can be for the future - and enjoys taking the time to moderate forums and write magazine articles.

Gibby
RED #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com

[Thomas Mathai]

Curious to see what RED marketing will be like? Your definition of marketing is way too narrow. RED marketing began months ago.

Maybe I should have said what the marketing will be like when the camera is shipping. I'm sure it'll be more than just forums.

[Thomas Mathai]

Summary: When was the last time you had a billionaire CEO interact on an Internet forum with you, on a grassroots level? In the combined film/TV production industry how many product introductions have been patterned along the same lines as the course RED has taken? How many CEOs of film/TV equipment production companies have been doing 30 years of hands on work with the type of equipment they are now developing and marketing? When was the last time you had the opportunity to acquire affordable new equipment that may allow you a significant leap forward in your media production business?

Bottom line: there are possibly no other founders/companies on the planet that could bring to the table the combination of insight, execution, and performance that Jannard/Oakley and the RED team have.

Well Mark Cuban has his blog where he states his opinions, and interacts with people who respond.

Wasn't the DVX-100 and HVX-200 getting similar forum buzz before they came out? I noticed it.

I have met more than a handful of CEO/owners of film/tv companies that have been hands on. Some more than others. There are a lot of tinkers in this industry, and they usually enjoy getting their hands dirty.

I've had the opportunity to aquire affordable new equipment since 1991, that's when I came across the original Video Toaster and i was amazed. Then came DV, etc etc. There's been 15 years of affordable equipment. a lot of significant leaps in that time period.

It's funny to be working with in multi-million dollar post facility and then go home and do just about the same thing on an off the shelf system.

[Gibby]

Very true...Cuban is an upfront communicator. Abrasive at times, but he steps up and states his opinion.

Of the large camera manufacturers, I think that Panasonic has been very progressive in listening to their market, particularly with the DVX and HVX.

I remember the Newtek Toaster, running on a Commodore Amiga! A big step forward in it's day (late '80's). It was fascinating then to dream of non-linear editing. Man...has the world accelerated since then!

The capability of desktop systems today is amazing. These are fun times to be working in media production...

Gibby
RED #8
www.cut4.tv
www.4umat.com