I tend to agree. It needs to be targetted primarily at purchasers and strategists.
Basil
-----Original Message----- From: Shane Martin Coughlan [mailto:coughlan@fsfeurope.org] Sent: 26 October 2007 12:02 To: Graham Taylor Cc: Georg C. F. Greve; Rod Norman; board@certifiedopen.com; Sachiko Muto; Basil Subject: Re: Flier
Graham Taylor wrote:
You have been on the same marketing course as me! Agree but what? and secondly its intersting but we have received greatest buy in when we have pushed the 'negative' lock-in message. Its a bit like an Insurance salesman having first to sell the dangers of a fire or whatever before he can sell the policy as a safeguard. Open,competitive choice.... is our tag line for the reason of being seen to be positive, but I am struggling to come up with an equivalent that is focussed enough without being glib. Keep thinking all!
Problem might be that we have not defined our primary audience for the slogan. Supplier or user.
If you say to a supplier "let's find lock-in" their most immediate reply is perhaps going to be hostile. Lock-in can be very useful for super-normal profit. Therefore the greatest beneficiaries from the CO programme are end-users and - by association - suppliers smart enough to spot which way the market trend is moving.
Terrible SWOT analysis follows:
Strength: CO allows people to make informed procurement decisions by minimising accidental lock-in.
Weakness: Suppliers can benefit from lock-in (given previous market trends rather than emerging ones).
Opportunity: The market is changing and large purchasing bodies have become aware that lock-in is costing a lot of money and time. CO helps solve that.
Threat: Pseudo-programmes designed to facilitate the continuation of lock-in either in its traditional form or in new forms (http://interopvendoralliance.org/).
So, perhaps our slogan is most effectively targeted at end-users, given that suppliers aware of the market trends will want to leverage positive benefit to their end-users as well.
This places CO neatly on the procurement bandwagon.
Bob, you were an IT chap at Lloyds I believe. What would have sold you on something like this?
"Overcoming lock-in" "Make the right decision" "Maximising benefit" "Optimise [your] procurement" "Sustainable purchasing"
Etc etc.
Shane