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90

Celine Dion, Coca Cola and Microsoft

90 points posted to Advertising and Marketing by steveoc 03/14/07

When I buy an CD player, thankfully, it does not come with big stickers all over it saying 'Designed for listening to Celine Dion', and 'LG Recommends Celine Dion'.

Not only would I not play Celine Dion music, but I wouldnt buy an LG player if it had these stickers on them either - out of principal.

What exactly does Dell gain by plastering 'Dell recommends Windows Vista' adverts all over its products and website ? Recommend it for what ? You DO understand that those adverts are offensive to some people ? You do understand that you are alienating a section of your potential market ?

Dell must receive some monetary reward for providing this advertising - so why stop there ?

Lets include some more paid-for advertising on the Dell web site. How about 'Dell recommends that users drink Coca Cola' ? that might bring in a decent subsidy.

There is big money in religion these days as well - so why not sell that out to the highest bidder as well ? 'Dell recommends pentacostal christianity' might be a good start .. unless those oil rich saudis are willing to chip in and replace it with 'Dell recommends that all users convert to Islam'

Lets see a 'Dell recommends Celine Dion' sticker on the CD drive then, and rake in the advertising revenue. At least when things get that stupid, the average punter will be able to read your existing 'Dell recommends Windows Vista' adverts in the right context.

benjesuit
03/14/07		 Well, it's called suggestive selling. For instance; you go to McDonald's and order a Big Mac. And that's it. Well the clerks are trained to suggest fries and a coke. Or a value meal. Ok, you're offended by the notion of fries because they have trans fat. And you're aghast at a Coke because if has caffeine.

But they didn't stop you from buying your Big Mac which has at a minimum, twice the daily recommendation for sodium intake and an exorbitant percent of calories from fat. Don't get me started on the carbs.

Yeah, I'm thinking DELL recommends you STFU and buy what you want irrespective of DELL's brand of suggestive selling. They also recommend a printer too, BTW. That one does bothers me a bit though. I happen to like HP printers. The nerve of Dell. Used to be able to buy HP printers from them.
steveoc
03/14/07		 Good analogy. Maccas eventually succumbed to the PR backlash, and now offer all sorts of salads and 'healthy' food. Fries are optional, as are burgers. There is hope for us yet - if MacDonalds can make a change, then maybe Dell can too.

There is even a law going before parliment here in Oz, banning fast food companies from using any trans fat in their cooking - and this applies to all of them. Similar debates are going on in lots of govt circles about open source as well. Proprietry data formats (ie - MS Office) are absolutely BANNED in many parts of govt, including the Australian national Archives.

But the analogy gets a bit grey when you consider that burgers, fries, and all that crap are things that maccas actually makes. Grey. They get paid by coke to have exclusive rights. It would be like Maccas charging you for a coke, whether you wanted one or not, or adding an additional $5 charge to any value meal that was not served with a coke ... and having Coke sign up the same deals with all other vendors as well. As it is, I can go to KFC to get a pepsi/mountain dew hit if thats the way I am inclined. If I dont like Dell's Vista-or-Vista choices, its not like I can go to Toshiba or HP or IBM or anyone else to get any competitive product.

In the meantime - I still think Dell should recommend Celine Dion, and sell HP printers even.
maccam94
03/14/07		 I made a similar comment in my first post: http://www.dellideastorm.com/article/show/63516/Ditch_the_Dell_Recommends_Win...< really like your analogy though. ;-)
hotdogwater
03/15/07		 I think your analogy is a bit off.

If McDonnalds said we recommend ketchup on our frys, would you not buy frys if you didn't like ketchup? Just because Dell recommends something you don't like, you feel it's worth not purchasing the item?

A CD player is designed to play CDs? A computer is designed to run software, part of that computer is an OS. If you wanted to make your analogy match, it would be Dell recommends Photoshop(an application you use the computer to run), not the OS?

Are you offended if LG said to use Duracell batteries instead of the brand you like? Since the OS for a CD player is built in it's a stretch to make the analogy to a computer and OS.

Are you offended if you waiter recommends a wine with a particular meal? Do you leave the restaurant if the wine is not to your liking?
steveoc
03/15/07		 hotdog -Thats fine if McDonalds 'recommends' ketchup on my fries, and puts it on by default with the burger. Problem is though, they dont even give you the option of NOT having it if you dont want it. Check out the Dell web site - your choices are Vista or XP or Vista .

If McDonalds recommended (insisted) on having ketchup on fries, thats fine. If they extended that to recommend it on everything - including having ketchup on my ice cream, ketchup in my drink, etc .. Id think they had lost the plot. Dell recommends Microsoft on everything, even where it is inappropriate. They get paid to do this.

You make an interesting point with your second analogy - you say that a computer is designed to run software, and that part of that computer is an OS. Well no - the computer is the computer, the OS is just another piece of software that runs on that computer, it is NOT an integral part of the computer. Microsoft would love you to believe that it IS an integral and inseparable part of the computer that is somehow magically different from any other piece of code, but that is just not true. Microsoft has done a fantastic job of selling this idea that Windows is somehow 'needed'. There is no way that Dell would plaster 'Dell recommends Photoshop' all over its website, because it is making a gross assumption about what the customer wants to use the machine for, and nobody is gullible enough to think that a computer needs a copy of Photoshop in order to be useful. Unfortunately, a lot of people do believe that a computer 'needs windows' before anything else can happen. I dont believe that is true, and Im not alone.

This is in reality, as absurd as LG assuming that buying a CD player means listening to Celine Dion.

The battery analogy is good - a lot of people DO recommend particular brands of batteries, but at the end of the day, all these goods are sold without a battery and the consumer can choose from amongst a wide range of competing brands as to which one to buy. Because of this competition, the batteries have to perform on merit in order to survive, and batteries have come a LONG way over the years. Unfortunately, we dont have that same level of competition and survive-on-merit when it comes to PC operating systems., and so progress has been glacial in this area. A PC is one of the most frustrating and unreliable of all things that you can buy today ...

I like the waiter analogy. I would not have a problem with a waiter recommending a wine with a particular meal - thats his job. I would become suspicous if that waiter recommended the exact same wine regardless of the meal being ordered .... and I would get out of my seat and kick his ass it turned out that they charged me for the wine regardless of whether or not I wanted it. If the restaurant had a deal with the wine maker, where the wine maker threatened to put them out of business if they dared to offer any other brands of wine - Well if that was the case, then Id say that your wine waiter analogy is a good one.
labtroll
03/17/07		 SURE. Why not let Dell laptops look like NASCAR racers =). They bloat the whole OS with crappy spyware loaded annoying nagging useless trial monopoly software anyway.

Make a DELL NASCAR edition system. It's will be free, because all the advertisements will pay for it!
hotdogwater
03/19/07		 I was just explaining that your analogy about Dell should not recommend an OS is not what your saying, you really want options for your OS. You may be able to make a computer be productive for you without an OS but 99% of the people out there looking to purchase a computer for work or personal use need an OS. I also would like to have options for operating systems but you asked why Dell recommends Vista or XP so here is why I think they do.
1. Most people need an operating system or the computer is not useful.
2. Most people are willing to have a sticker saying the mfg of this product recommends the OS to save money on the purchase of said computer.

I know ppl like to bash MS and Dell for their spammy ways but if you think about it, without it we would all be buying $5000+ PCs, the internet would be for nerds and geeks only (and half the fun/knowledge sharing/informative/ etc..).

Why are you not mad that LG will not offer other operating systems on that DVD player? What if we had opensource toasters and CD players and could integrate with them (even if it caused some buggyness). What if every computer hardware MFG had its own OS like on many electronic devices today? I have a cheap DVD player (phllips I think) I bought to play DVDs of MP3s on my home stereo. It's great to be able to load up a $.25 DVD with 4+ GB of music and put it in my player to get digital sound that can play for almost 3 days without repeating. Guess what, the dumb player has no shuffle.... great OS Philips...

 
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