September 8th, 2008
Ad danger to open source
As we discussed on Friday, advertising aims to build myths around products, by telling stories about people.
We saw this in the Seinfeld ad with Bill Gates, just as we see it in all political ads.
But open source has not grown through branding. Tux is a cute penguin, but the primary way open source has gained power is through values.
Values, of course, create myths. From open source values has emerged the myth of Richard Stallman, and the myth of Linus Torvalds.
These are not ad icons. They are real people, just as Bill Gates and John McCain are real people. But their stories deliver lessons about open source values, so they take on the quality of myth.
As we proceed along this political season, though, it’s important to note how advertising can build myths and tear them down. Negative ads tell negative stories. The myth, or candidate, is attacked, and their values, or principles, go down with them.
The same thing can happen in product advertising. Most product ads don’t aim to take down competing products directly, but there have always been some.
Which leads me back to the Microsoft-Seinfeld campaign, to all advertising really, and the chance that some ad man may decide that the way to gain market power is by attacking the myths and values of open source.
This could be done in many ways:
- Implying that open source is insecure.
- Implying that open source is theft, like an illegal download.
- Implying that open source destroys jobs.
We have seen these charges levelled. We just haven’t seen them advertised. Yet.
We’ve been fortunate, up until now, that the biggest gains of open source have been in the enterprise space.
Business-to-business (b2b) advertising appeals more to the head than the heart, since buyers have to make rational business decisions using what they buy. And few b2b campaigns reach TV, since few businesspeople watch TV at work.
But as Linux and open source enter the consumer realm, through netbooks like the Asus EeePC, the gloves may come off.
At that point, I think, we have a problem, because open source has almost no advertising budget.
Is it time for open source to get ready for serious ad wars? How would open source pay for such a fight? And what would an ad for open source look like?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/08/08
