[Marketing] OSGeo and Sponsor co-branding

[Cameron Shorter]

Catching up on the OSGeo Marketing meeting, which I missed, sorry. I'm 
still catching up from foss4g. The relevant parts from the logs: re 
OSGeo disk and co-branding:
http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2009-11-11.log

22:49:18 	darkblue_B: 	Live Demo Disk
22:49:26 	darkblue_B: 	when you are ready
22:49:27 	TylerM: 	note live disk was handed out in conference bags.
22:49:46 	wildintellect: 	we were aware, since some of us here helped 
build it
22:50:02 	: 	* wildintellect actually made the final version
22:50:14 	TylerM: 	right-o : ) I heard good things
22:50:30 	TylerM: 	great work guys
22:50:40 	darkblue_B: 	wildintellect: and cshorter and haymen were the 
champions
22:50:56 	darkblue_B: 	but I managed to get pretty irritated with Haymen 
too
22:51:01 	darkblue_B: 	so it goes


22:51:19 	TylerM: 	the printed disk was branded with lisasoft + osgeo, 
which brought me a few questions.. even from a couple other sponsors :[
22:51:26 	wildintellect: 	so how can we build for FOSS4G 2010 from 
marketing
22:51:42 	wildintellect: 	I agree that issue needs to be worked out
22:51:45 	TylerM: 	not sure who made that call.. but we know they did 
spend a good amount of time on it.


22:52:11 	darkblue_B: 	wait - that LisaSoft print.. and the Arramagong 
name.. is that clarified Tyler
22:52:12 	darkblue_B: 	?
22:52:15 	wildintellect: 	lisasoft was the lead on the whole thing - 
mild Conflict of interest on Camerons side
22:52:18 	TylerM: 	mainly just want to get this into our agendas for 
upcoming months so we are ahead of the game.
22:52:47 	darkblue_B: 	this is pretty important.. if there is some 
conflict brewing
22:52:48 	TylerM: 	darkblue_B: not clear to me really
22:53:02 	wildintellect: 	seems like we should make a plan with the 
Barcelona peeps including timeline of PR
22:53:07 	TylerM: 	just some wondered why one company's logo and name 
were included on the cover along with osgeo
22:53:14 	darkblue_B: 	.. I'll say as many times as I can - I think the 
Live DVD is one of the best things to come out of OSGeo in a ling time
22:53:17 	darkblue_B: 	long time
22:53:32 	darkblue_B: 	but, its *so* good, if LisaSoft is putting itself 
in front every time
22:53:43 	darkblue_B: 	could be trouble
22:53:45 	darkblue_B: 	not neutral
22:54:02 	TylerM: 	this is a bigger issue as well, re: putting corporate 
info on osgeo marketing material..
22:54:08 	darkblue_B: 	yep
22:54:11 	TylerM: 	it is a right of some of the sponsorship levels.
22:54:18 	TylerM: 	http://osgeo.org/sponsorship.
22:54:27 	wildintellect: 	my agenda item for later was how make OSGeo 
more prominent on the Live Demo down the road
22:54:36 	TylerM: 	ok fair enough
22:55:07 	TylerM: 	i'd like to clarify the co-branding bit, but want to 
kick it around a bit.


----
I agree with Tyler, that I think the Marketing Committee needs to set 
some clear guidelines with regards to co-branding.

The current reality of the situation is:
* OSGeo doesn't have budget to pay for for a booth at every conference 
around the world
* Despite a perception to the contrary, conferences are an expensive way 
to find work. They are useful for more of a long term mindshare shift.
* A local OSGeo company, like LISAsoft, is interested in local 
conferences only, and prepared to pay to set up an OSGeo presence at the 
local conference. (We try to share costs with others, usually Autodesk 
has helped out).
* If a local (small) company is to be paying for an OSGeo booth, then 
they will need to be working behind the booth pushing OSGeo, but also 
needing to push their own company. They will need to be wearing two 
hats. We (OSGeo) should recognise that, and encourage supporting 
companies to include the company's marketing material, or banner at the 
booth.

With regards to FOSS4G and LISAsoft branding on the LiveDVD.
Yes, the LiveDVD is an excellent marketing tool for OSGeo, and a great 
branding opportunity for a sponsor of OSGeo. The FOSS4G conference was 
also great marketing opportunity for companies like LISAsoft, but it did 
come at a price. LISAsoft was hugely committed to both the LiveDVD and 
FOSS4G. Our direct wages bill for the conference exceeded $100,000, and 
there was twice as much volunteer time on top of that. To put it in 
perspective, the biggest FOSS4G sponsor was the Bureau of Meteorology, 
contributing $30,000 toward the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration 
Plugfest, and then our three Gold Sponsors contributed $15,000 each.
Getting the LiveDVD out was a major risk for the conference, and it only 
made it because of some super human efforts from a team of people, of 
which LISAsoft was part.  The reason I was able to justify spending a 
significant amount of LISAsoft time on the Arramagong LiveDVD was 
because of the marketing potential to LISAsoft. (Hence the reason for 
LISAsoft's logo on the LiveDVD).
Other companies are promoted to a greater or lesser extent through their 
software which is installed on the LiveDVD. We could potentially improve 
this marketing by adding specific "Commercial Support" help pages for 
each project.

So in summary:
I think co branding is good and should be encouraged, and that the 
Marketing committee should be working toward some guidelines for how 
this should be applied (which extend to the local level, not just 
international).

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com