Conference 7.286::digital

    He was talking about a new ad campaign wherein people socialize with 
    hardware.
    
    Hillel
    

    I heard most of it.  He was actually very upbeat on the campaign, and
    said that DEC might have a cult classic in the making.  I think that he
    said something along the lines of "DEC may have a dopey idea that will
    become a cult classic" or something like that.
    
    I'm sure you can hear it again tonight, they usually rebroadcast
    morning spots like this in the evening.  WBUR (90.9 FM) and WGBH (~88
    FM) in the Boston are both carry NPR, although WBUR carries it longer
    than WGBH does.  NPR is national, so check you local public radio
    stations between 5 and 7 tonight.  I'm pretty sure you can call or
    write and get transcripts of any segment they run.
    
    /greg

    I think that was on a WBUR segment, which is not sent on to NPR.
    You would have to call WBUR to be sure.
    
    In any case, he did not say that "Open Advantage" was a dopey message,
    but having people talking to computers at dinner tables, etc was dopey.
    It could become another cult classic, as in "I've fallen and I can't
    boot up."
    
    At the end he said "I'll have to go discuss this with my personal
    computer.  His name is Mac."

    It was a WBUR segment.  He said that Digital needed to spruce up its
    image given all the bad publicity of the last couple of years.  He also
    said that the prime-time audience for business systems was about the
    size of a chip. Thus, he questioned the effectiveness of the campaign.
    He did say that it might succeed in spite of itself because of its
    cult-classic potential. 
    
    Succeeding in spite of itself---now, there's a motto for DEC these days....
    
                                                 

    Except that the DEC ads appear only on sports programs.  Customer
    management must all be sports fans.
    
    As opposed to the Sunday morning political interview programs (This
    Week with David Brinkley, Sunday Morning, Meet the Press, etc) where
    we see all the other corporate image ads, like the ones for Apple
    and GE mentioned earlier.  I wonder if they know something we don't?
    
    And now not only do I know what Arthur Daniel Midlands does, I am now
    a customer!

re .5:

Maybe they want to avoid the clutter?

   Re:                       <<< Note 1833.5 by 4GL::DICKSON >>>

>    Except that the DEC ads appear only on sports programs.  Customer
>    management must all be sports fans.
    
>    As opposed to the Sunday morning political interview programs (This
>    Week with David Brinkley, Sunday Morning, Meet the Press, etc) where
>    we see all the other corporate image ads, like the ones for Apple
>    and GE mentioned earlier.  I wonder if they know something we don't?


   Hunt up a book called "The Myth of Management".  The author
   says there are a lot of naked emperors out there, and gives
   some evidence to back up his claim.  Maybe our customer
   management really does sit in front of the tube watching some
   sporting activity in their tee shirts while nurturing bottles
   of beer.  Given the performance of many companies who shall
   remain nameless, that might be where they learn what they
   know.  :-)
   
fwiw,

   Dick    

    	Just be thankful that Digital finally discovered television and
    that the ads aren't yawners like the previous attempts. I know, for
    some reason, that it's difficult for Digital people to believe, but
    most people in this country actually *do* watch television! Yes, it's
    shocking...I know...Now it's also unfair to make generalizations, but
    it's also probably true that a majority of the people making buying
    decisions in our customer base (and market segment) are men, and most
    men (sit down for another shocker) watch a lot of sports on television.
    	I saw a memo floating around before the ad campaign started. It
    said something like, "We've discovered that advertising on television
    can reach people we've been unable to reach through other advertising
    and that many of these people watch sports!" I laughed out loud when I
    read this. Welcome to the 20th century, Digital!

    I have to admit that I was embarrased by the ads and have taken
    quite a bit of flack from friends. Pitiful compared to the new
    Microsoft ads. We failed in the early to mid 80's with our PC
    ads, anyone remember them? Why are we failing again? What ad firm
    did we hire? Maybe I'm wrong but these new ones surely won't help.
    
    Jim C.
    

    Actually I kept waiting for the pink bunny to come across the screen.
    I was kind of disappointed.
    
    Ken

    Re .10
    
    The ad agency is Mullen Advertising, located in Wenham, Mass.  Not one
    of your better known outfits, but then someone suggested it may be a
    branch of a larger agency.
    
    Yes, I remember the awful PC ads; I hung a private nickname on my
    "favorite": "Three Nerds Applauding the Main Menu."
    
    I've seen three of the current crop, and like the "lobby" spot the
    best.  And by the way--if anyone has seen the "share an office" ad, I'd
    be interested in the last line or so of "dialogue"; anyone recall it?
    I just want to confirm an impression I had (was only half-attentive
    when I caught the last few seconds of the ad).
    
    				Steve
    

    Maybe things will change with appointment of a new VP of corporate
    communications, a guy from outside DEC who has done some nice stuff
    when he was at The Travelers Insurance.  I think his name is Halloran,
    charlie Halloran.  There was a blurb in the Boston Globe about him a
    few days ago.  I thought the ads were dumb.tjk
    

    Well, at least DEC is advertising on TV.  Believe it or not, there
    is probably some potential customers out there watching this stuff.
    
    I'm no expert in advertising, but I did take some advertising courses
    at college.  The ads that get remembered the most are normally the
    ones that most people complain about.  Remember, "ring around the
    collar...RING AROUND THE COLLAR".  Most will know that's a Wisk
    commercial.  And, believe it or not, that ad ran for many years
    and pulled in a lot of customers for Wisk!
    
    Just my 02/100's of a dollar.
    
    Don

    My first reaction to the executive talking to his workstation over
    drinks at a restaurant was that this was one lonely guy 8^)
    
    I must say, though, that while the technoweenie might object (computers
    in a sauna?  horrors!), the ads are memorable, and you can't hope for
    better.
    
    Managers don't watch TV?  Right.

Since the only TV watching I tend to do is the local news, (and I find
basketball to be incredibly boring), is there any way to get a VHS copy of the
spots?

Bob

re .15

>We all watch TV

No, "we" don't.   :-)

>    <<< Note 1833.16 by SCAACT::AINSLEY "Less than 150 kts. is TOO slow" >>>
>               -< I wish I knew what we are talking about... >-

>Since the only TV watching I tend to do is the local news, (and I find
>basketball to be incredibly boring), is there any way to get a VHS copy of the
>spots?


The spots are orderable in any video format, including VHS, through 
the AV Catalog - at VTX AVCATALOG.  If you select 

		3 - Browse
		3 - Corporate Capabilities
		3 - Corporate Image/Capabilities
		2 - Open Advantage Television Commercials

If you simply wish to order, the Catalog # is 5172, you can go 
directly to the on-line order form.

Norma Frye

    RE: .9  by XCUSME::MACINTYRE 
    
   >sporting activity in their tee shirts while nurturing bottles
   >of beer.                                    ^^^^^^^^^
   >                                            |||||||||
   > 
   >                                            What's this?  "Nurturing" a
    
    Check out the HOMEBREW conference for information on how to nurture
    beer.  But tell me, did the ad in the sauna really refer to one of the
    computers as "Big fella"?
    

    RE:  .19 - who pays for the copies?  Instead of the masses ordering a
    copy of a videocassette because they'd like to see the commercial, why
    not set up a loaner system with a half dozen or so copies.  

re: .21

Yep.  When I went into VTX and saw the price, I decided that I will just have
to remain uniformed.

Bob

    Or gee, maybe we can even show them on DVN...

    If you have a Mac you can watch them in QuickTime.  Somebody has
    kindly loaded them into that format.  See the ROUTES::MACONLINE
    archives conference.

> If you have a Mac you can watch them in QuickTime.  Somebody has
> kindly loaded them into that format.  See the ROUTES::MACONLINE
> archives conference.

  There's something incredibly telling about the fact that you can
  watch our Digital commercials on a Mac, but not a VAXstation or
  DECstation.

                                   Atlant

well, obviously you don't NEED to watch DEC commercials on
a DEC machine, because you're already a custiomer.

		:-)

> If you have a Mac you can watch them in QuickTime.  Somebody has
> kindly loaded them into that format.  See the ROUTES::MACONLINE
> archives conference.

  There's something incredibly telling about the fact that one can
  watch our Digital commercials on an Apple Macintosh, but not on
  a Digital VAXstation or DECstation, owing to the general lack of
  facilities for the playback of video or sound, let alone synchro-
  nized video *AND* sound on the Digital machines.  I guess that's
  why I'm an *EX-DIGITAL* customer and a current Apple customer.

                                   Atlant

    May I call your attention to DEC's XMedia?
    

  Alright, if you want to have a serious debate...

  Will it run on any workstation with sufficient memory and storage
  but without adding any extra, specialized hardware?  Will it run
  on workstations that cost $1K to $2K?  Has anybody taken the time
  to convert the commercial to this format?  Has anybody ever added
  A VERTICAL-SYNC INTERRUPT (essential for smooth animation and video)
  to any of our graphic engines?  Back in the early days, the work-
  station designers wouldn't do it, saying "what would you need
  *THAT* for?"

  But the Mac has had all of this forever.

                                   Atlant

  QuickTime is a cute toy, but that's probably all it is at this stage.
  I suspect the Macintosh will need much more powerful hardware before
  QuickTime can deal with full-screen NTSC video, let alone HDTV.

  But on the other hand, they are getting experience with some of the
  data volume problems, and giving their users a preview of the future.
  So when the hardware improves to the point that it can support video
  well, they'll be ready.

  I believe Digital is involved in a research project with one of the
  California universities, called Sequoia 2000, which might give us a
  bit of insight into some of the multi-media problems.  This project
  is trying to support networked scientists, who want quick access to
  large amounts of satellite data stored at several campuses.

    re: .12 - As I recall it, the last line went..."I had to share an office
    once, it was'nt so bad."
    
    For what it's worth... My father-in-law and I were watching one of the
    NCAA games ( I.U. & someone), when the "take a VT340 to lunch"
    commercial came on.  My Father-in-law is a recently retired CEO from a
    BlueCross/Blue Shield - [they even have a reasonable amount of VAXes]
    and the commercials were supposedly aimed at execs.  I asked him what
    he thought of it. He would'nt have even known it WAS a commercial much
    less a DEC one if I had'nt pointed it out!!  These were played in
    conjunction with the NCAA games and they needed to be constructed to
    gain attention in a high energy environment. They did not. In addition
    to being in this environ for 10 years, I was in commercial photography
    10 years prior which only reinforces what is clear to me.  We need a
    NEW AD Agency. Since we're buddy-buddy with Microsoft, maybe they'll
    tell us who they use. They're pretty good. 

  Lawrence Livermore National Labs has designed a LAN that has an
  aggregate bandwidth of about a terabyte.  It's main design goal
  was to provide 1024 simultaneous circuit-switched connections,
  each of which could carry full-motion (30fps) workstation qual-
  ity (mega-pixel, 24-bit pixels) motion pictures developed by
  simulation programs running on supercomputers.

  Several end-user workstations are supported.  One supported
  family is Macintosh.  No DEC workstations were mentioned in
  the presentation I saw (at DECUS!).

                                   Atlant

    re 22: "why not show the ads on DVN" - We have, on the Bob Hughes Sales
    Focus DVN for March. They will appear again in April on DVN, and in
    May. tjk

    re: .31
    
    Thank you for the "curtain line" of the "share an office" commercial.
    That's what I was afraid the guy said.
    
    It seems to me that if there isn't a rule of advertising about ending a
    commercial--especially a short "high-impact" spot like this--with a
    negative word or thought, there ought to be such a rule.
    
          "...it wasn't so BAD."  !!!!!
    
                    			Steve