You mentioned this would be a "ONE-TIME MARKETING OPPORTUNITY", and I completely agree that this, if it works as I understand it to, would be a brilliant concept to undertake and would give us a new reach into a bigger market. What level of marketing are you expecting to do for the applications themselves?
The standard wisdom in marketing is that the fatal error is the failure to surprise. This capability should come as a big surprise to everyone and that's why I would like to release it on the world at one time to create a wave of excitement.
I have been planning to announce OpenClip in a pdf that's going out with WildTools 9.0.3 in about a month. It will have the bull shown above as a central part of the image. We have used the bull with WildTools for a number of years. In this case, he has 3D glasses. The idea is to have his arms around two unbelievably shapely women where the only thing you notice about them is that they are unbelievably well-endowed. Probably will have their heads turned into the bull's shoulders so you don't see their faces. We will probably get rid of the cigar and nose ring for the bull, and also flare his nostrils. And the headline will be "Hook Up with 3D".
The idea is to create something that is funny and very memorable. Ideally it would be something people would email to their friends with a 'you've got to see this!'
Second idea is to make a number of merger announcements:
Microspot and Adobe Systems Merge
Say that the companies have merged so that users of MacDraft and Adobe Illustrator can now work interchangeably between the two programs with copy and paste. Hahaha, just kidding about the merger, but now with OpenClip in each program...
We could have a lot of merger announcements like this. They would get coverage in forums and on the internet until the joke wore off.
And the other thing is to get users whipped up about this so they make a lot of noise about having the feature. I've seen it happen any number of times where someone will set up a howl on the internet about something. Software companies just cannot ignore this sort of thing, particularly if it's an easy feature to implement.
Alfred Scott
