A Blog From Behind the Trenches

I don't think that Opera's marketing suck, but that would be nice to see cool videos which can be as iconic as Apple ads with Mac and PC. I'm not saying to copy Apple, I'm saying to create something that cool and creative so theese videos will flood YouTube and other sites.

To me it seems like Opera doesn't have the "grass-roots" awareness that, say Firefox has. So when the average person is talking alternative browsers FF is the name that springs to mind.

Not that I know what can be done to change this.

Some excerpts from this comment:

[...]The global Opera marketing is also very poor. Only the actual Opera users seem to be targeted (sic!). At least only they hear about Opera's PR actions.

The end users see Web pages and services of any other software vendors in their own languages. Only Opera resists. Even some Opera Browser built-in features are not localizable! The features which were highlighted by Opera Software when launching some new versions. Let me list voice functions, opera:config (including its help), keyboard and mouse shortcuts configuration window, widgets download page, widgets themselves (they are mostly available in English only), skins download page, and more. But software localization issues are only a part of this story. Marketing and www.opera.com available in the end-user languages are the keys. The latter does not count in case of US market, but does the Opera marketing work there? (I don't mean bloggers and club parties.)

Since the time I've sent this comment, Opera has launched some localized mini-pages. But they are available in few languages only and they are really mini, and not intended to be updated on regular basis.

This is of course only a part of the marketing activities, but every part should be as perfect as possible to make the work as a whole at least good.

Most of the marketing I see is performed at my.opera.com. The contests, which are held to promote something, are usually won by people from within the very same tiny group of my.opera.com members (including me, but, after getting into the winer group twice, I have decided to stop taking part in any my.opera contests). I've even seen an Opera employee winning a T-Shirt or something, but he was removed from the winners list when the my.opera person was informed that he was actually an Opera employee.

Other marketing events, such as "back-stage events" or similar, are made public at places visited by the Opera users only (not the average Opera users, but the ones more or less involved in "Opera community".

Persons responsible for local marketing have often superficial (or plainly none) knowledge about the local market, but this is rather not a good place to discuss this.

In this post I've also written:

Opera, which is often not even mentioned by its name - it's called an Internet Channel, the Web Browser, or something, and only the my.opera.com users know, that Opera is hidden under these nicks.

Well, maybe not only my.opera users by now, but it's definitely the minority who ever hear the "Opera Browser" name in these contexts. And a few days ago one of the Polish mobile operators has started beta testing of ”their” brand new browser called blueconnect (it was announced here).

Local marketing - choosing partners issue.

Take a look at the biggest Polish portal's Web page, which became Opera partner recently. Do you see Opera being promoted there? Yes, there's a link to opera.onet.pl at this page, but try to find it without using the search feature. It's much easier to find the "S" icon in the top-left corner.

The opera.onet.pl is not promoted (I've heard some people had seen some ads at onet.pl, but it seems that thay are not displayed any more). It does not bring any new value, but a bit of shame. 99% of the content is a copy & paste of the pl.opera.com and the original Opera help files (what was the purpose of publishing the help files which are already available online with a nicer CSS?). The remaining 1% contained errors and typos already jeered by numerous Polish bloggers and fortumately mostly corrected. Not to mention that the whole thing is based on tables and does not even mention Opera Mobile nor Opera for Linux (Opera Mini and Opera for Windows are covered only).

And the page serves outdated Opera versions. I can understand that they do not serve Opera 9.23 today, since it was just published. But they have started serving Opera 9.22 a couple of weeks after it was launched (after I've sent an e-mail to OS). At that time they were offering Opera 9.21.

Well, onet.pl is the biggest player at the Polish market, but at the very same time it was always known as the most Opera Browser unfriendly portal of the leading Polish portals.

The Opera Browser marketing performed by onet.pl is not your fault, but I think it was something wrong with choosing the partner, or including some requirements in your partnership agreement.

The only hope is that onet.pl had no time to prepare something special
and will do it soon. And that the partnership will not end-up as a sheet of paper and the press release.

Originally posted by haavard:

How would you suggest that this be addressed, then? They can hardly publish these things on other sites

The marketing staff is paid to find the right solutions and they definitely should do their homework by deeply researching the local markets instead of expecting that other people (Opera fans?) do it for them.

What marketing? The 1 ad I saw (can't remember which mag) was horrid!

What I don't understand, I assume it is a $ issue, is why Opera isn't pre-installed on Dells, HP, Acer's, ect.. and why not included in the Google Pack.

I'm also not a marketing man, so do not expect me to be constructive here, especially in few minutes or days. But I can see that something is wrong and I'm just saying this.

Well, the only Opera publicity I've heard outside of Opera's vicinity was the stunt to cross the Atlantic ocean to the USA. That was a huge grass-root event. However, I don't know how Opera would replicate that.

I don't know about the Wii channel enough, but, if it's not already done, I know I would make some publicity when booting the channel. Something like "Download the Wii browser on your computer for Free!" or "The Opera Wii browser is available for free for your computer at opera.com".

I think all publicity should still focus on the words "free" and "ads-free", because a lot of people still associate Opera with ads. A lot of people gave it a try years ago during the Netscape 4 era and had been turned down by ads. I don't think the word is out yet.

Also, "faster" should not be such a big focus in publicity. The microseconds you save are not very apparent to the untrained eye and are not a good selling point. Instead, "The most secure browser for your PC" would be much more convincing. I also know that I am turned down by publicity that promises too much. Like, if it says "The fastest, most secure, most customizable browser", as a neophite, I'll be confused and I would think it's a gimmick.

(That's my opinion, I'm not a publicist.)

Well, "Opera Powered" doesn't say much to someone who doesn't know what Opera is... One could think that the Wii channel is powered by a fat singing lady! Maybe that image could be changed to something more explicit? Just a thought.

My point is, if "Opera for PC" marketing could piggy-back on the success of other platforms, awareness would be raised.

If your desperate for an example, look at your own blog, right here. Right under your profile picture is a small box promoting Opera, with a link to download it. That, right there, would be perfect as an advertisement on another website. Contact marketing, and tell them to buy some ad space on other websites.

@havard

I think is that it was a Linux mag I perused in a Barnes & Noble within the last year and I was just surprised as I'd not seen an ad previously and how limited the information displayed was considering the readership of the mag.

It was my belief that the pre-installation of sw usually included some sort of compensation. If I was marketing I'd be knocking on hw vendors' doors and not just pc vendors but any vendor providing an install cd trying to get Opera preinstalled (on the cd). Maybe even offering to split Google revenue derived from that pc. Google is a "partner", they give away Googgle Pack and there's no Opera available - I'd hire some new marketers. How many mag's with bundled cd's come with Opera?

I'd also agree with the previous focus on security, maybe focusing on parent and school websites and media. Add security addons such as pgp and clamav to M2 and parental controls.

How much does Opera do to cross market the browser to wii and mini users?

And if I had my way back in the old days before M2 was allowed to whither I'd of used the email product to sell the browser but without html, scheduling and a minimally functioning contact management system business and students wouldn't be attracted.

Seems that technology also can bolster usage and if there was a 64bit version a year ago it could have helped. A lot of the add-on functionality is minimal, functional but minimal, such as the dl manager, M2, bittorrent - interesting but not enough to draw users of standalone products because of it. Still don't see what the focus on widgets got when other parts of Opera could of been boosted.

First of all Opera should change the logo of browser. And people bored saing about this issue already.
After logo change start new AD campaign, sell new merchandise. Even branding change alone can raise user base significally. Most teenagers will never use a product that is not cool, and Opera browser logo is so old-style and completly sucks (I can tell you this as designer).
Help Opera fan sites, help to promote this sites. Even if this sites doing good already (planeta.operapl.net, operafan.net, myopera.net).
From the technical point of view better handling of plugins (installing, deinstalling) and automatic updates may help a lot. Also (I know, this is not Opera alone fault) make popular services from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft work.

P.S. I just added Opera banner to my blog sidebar.

i think i have "found" an interessting blogpost on favbrowser.com

At first, Opera has to work with Google services and other common sites. It's really poor if a new user of your browser can't just use a GMail without annoying info that he should use IE/Fx. What to do? Implement needed functions/features and inform Google. What is Google doesn't listen to? You can publish Opera with browser.js repairing Google services.

OK, let's move forward.

If we already have working browser, Opera needs to be promoted on well-known sites. It was really nice idea to cooperate with huge Polish http://onet.pl/ but... as andol mentioned ─ this cooperation sucks. Onet prepared poor http://opera.onet.pl/ site which isn't linked quite anywhere. Do something about this!

One more idea may be pre-installing Opera on notebooks. Companies producing notebooks usually prepare OEM version of Windows. Talk with them, cooperate! Let them know how secure Opera is and prompt them to preinstall this great browser for users's security. There are really a lot of vendors to try this with. Dell, Acer, Toshiba and others.

How does one get in touch with Opera Marketing?

Does Opera attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This is the biggest tech show in the United States, and could really give Opera a lot more leverage over the market.

@havavard - you asked how best to market Opera and the best way to market it, especially with what appears to be a minimal budget, is to have the product speak and then have the bloggers, press and users speak out on how the product speaks to them (let's call it viral/reviewer marketing). And to have the masses scream out "OPERA" then the product has to continuosly evolve to levels (not degrees) greater than the competition and not just do things better than it used to. You want free press then do the amazing and amazing isn't better imap, better rendering, new M2 backend - these are bread and butter functions that are expected. If a year ago when 64bit Linux was becoming somewhat popular having a 64bit verion would have created it's own market, a true standalone M2 would create it's own market - this is what the wii and mini are doing and if properly exploited these would then build the base of the browser (are they being exploited?).

Also you're making assumptions about Google Pack and how it determines inclusion how about asking martketing what they've attempted or how about starting a email campaign to include Opera. Were they always buddies? Has Opera ever reached out?

And to really understand Opera's marketing you need to know what has been done and your comment "For example, we run ads in both online and printed media to my knowledge." doesn't give you much of a perspective nor does it imply Opera does much in the way of marketing. Have you seen the ads, the sites and medias advertised on? Heck I read a bunch of tech stuff regulary and I've seen 1 ad, is it because I'm in US, a Linux'er? Why?

Does Opera attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas?

yes, sure.

It suc*s for sure. I am into this for many years now and would like you to give a few advices, but how about you tell me your budget first? If you want some good advices, tell us your budget, if you want some general ones like "do that, make this" it's not gonna work without knowing more details. And answering your question "why it suc*s?" Because there are no marketing strategy at all... Conferences and other stuff is not like a "real strategy", everyone does that, even a 10y old kid would understand that this is needed, but your marketing strategy is like 10y kid, they know basics only. Press, conferences, etc...

And here what happens next: http://www.favbrowser.com/why-its-not-enough-to-have-all-the-greatest-features/

:-) Bookmarked this page, will come back for the answer. I don't want exact numbers, just more info.

By the way: "we don't have big money like other companies" is not an excuse. They started from 0 too. And you are not a 0 anymore, you already got some income going on... This post became kinda long, so will stop now :-)

"I have no marketing skills what so ever, be warned. People I link to or talk about in this text are just examples, and not meant to be personal attacks, their images just seemed to fit the profile for the day. But if you still want to listen, your car might die on you, and loud sounds may be heard outside your office window."

No money, no ads:
There is two topics I want to bring forward, and I will mainly talk about Opera for the desktop. The first one is the Opera image. For a long time Opera had ads, and undoubtedly still suffer from this. One thing is that most people don't know about Opera at all, which is a separate problem, but we have to face the fact that many people have tested it in the past still have that image of Opera. I myself have had to educate both friends and coworkers even the last year about this, and it comes as a surprise to quite a few of them. People searching for Opera cracks, and people not upgrading their Opera version (Link was seen on OperaWatch too, but I can't seem to find it) because they don't want to pay for it is real examples of this.

I keep seeing interviews with people from our management all the time too.

Leaders/marketing people in suits just adds to this image as well. Sure they have to present themselves when having meetings with Motorola, HTC and what not, but what about the end users. Does it look good for them if they already think they have to pay for the application. When was the last time you saw Asa or David Barron in a suit? What about this "marketing guy", or this one. Why don't we see more of those. Out with the suits, back with the nerds and the fun. After all, it was the fun you had with the MSN.com page back in the days that made me first want to try out Opera, but the ads made Phenix->Firebird->Firefox my path back then, even though it didn't always like my name.


Community:
Making of the MyOpera community was a great idea, but it also has it's down side. The positive side is that it gets lots of inbound links, where people can see Opera "ads" and posts. The negative part is that it locks down the community quite a bit. And Opera doesn't really help them self in this area either. I won't mention names nor domains here, but more than once people doing good for the Opera community have been taken under the Opera wing and away from the community they build around them selves. I don't blame them. I can't see why anyone should refuse such an opportunity when a company they love wants them. But sometimes things are best let alone.

Firefox on the other hand gains on this kind of community building. People are butting up spread firefox pages, making digg clones, and most of all making extensions. Where are all those Opera pages? Is the community too small? Or did MyOpera crush it? And what are all the nerds left with at Opera? Making userjs files that only a 100 Opera users in the world are capable of installing? If they can at all find them? As a bottom line I just want to point out again, I don't think big ads in magazines is the solution. Well maybe for those on the other side of the table when a new mobile phone are to be released, but for the average user to see it, you have to make the community work with you. As of today, they sit on their BEEP waiting for PR to make it all happen.


- ØØ -



[Edit]Just saw that DjiXas wrote that his post became kind of long, I guess I should have titled mine "In 21 days", and added chapters. Sorry[/Edit]

@haavard: I tried to get more of the fun, less of the suits I'll find more if you challenge me, but I hope you got my point non the less. Even if I took the humour as an approach to it instead of the nagging people seem to like when talking about it.


The problem is that everyone that likes Opera, loves it so much and want it to succeed so much, but when the user base stays as low as now, people easily get frustrated. But for me as a user I can't really see the point of getting angry. I win non the less*. I get Opera for free on my desktop as well as my phone. Beat that.


*I guess Opera requires a certain userbase to stay alive, but I trust the guys on top, and hope they have the control.

- ØØ -

Hmm - focus groups? have they ever been done?

So if I was Opera, and after I fired all the marketing people assuming I could find him/her, I'd go calling to the Sloan School (Havard, not Haavard {somehow there should be a pun here}) and see if they'ed do me a case study 'cause I'm convinced no one at Opera has ever done any strategic marketing thinking let alone plans (and by the above posts I'm not alone in this thought).

I'd also ask Google to buy me (I'm assuming Coke and Disney won't) because the name recognition would be worth quite a bit of additional users.

One last thought for this post: Digital Equipment Corp. - great engineers, great technologies and no need for marketing.

But you are from Opera team, right? So you can ask them :-)

Regarding strategy, I prefer to talk about that in private (if you or Opera's marketing team are interested) but only after I will get more info.

As now it's something like this:

I want a car, but don't know my budget. Hope you got my point :-) Different amounts of money requires different marketing strategies.

Of course, I could give some random advices to solve one or two Opera's problems, but anyone could think about that, so those advices are peace of ... But if you want one, here it is: get in touch with web developers, for example advertise in some big forums. Why? Opera team always complained that web coders ignores Opera web browser, but what else Opera did besides complaining? It's not only like you buy 468*60 ad in the digitalpoint or sitepoint or whatsover but explain webmasters (in their place, not in some opera blog or so) why it is important to make web pages friendly to any web browser. Tell them that Opera got millions of users and if they don't want to lose traffic, they shold make it friendly to any web browser. Anyway, hope you got my point.

EDIT: So... Now this could help Opera a lot. For example: John using Opera, but notices that some pages are not working well in it and downloads Firefox. John finds those pages very attractive (whatever) and most of his time he spends there. What happens? As John spend most of the time using Firefox now, he sees no point to use Opera for one or two pages (where he spend 5 mins daily), so closes Opera and using Firefox. Why? Because web developers are idiots and haven't made good page? NO. Because Opera was lazy to explain web developers IN THEIR PLACE why they SHOULD make it Opera friendly.

Another long post, no offense. :-)

"(in their place, not in some opera blog or so)" :-)

So you want to report billions of webmasters (manually) that site not renders correctly or get in their place and explain things?

As someone pointed out people still search for Opera crack/serial, maybe Opera could buy some Google ads for these keywords.

Also, marketing on web sites that have technology-oriented customers that only use IE could be nice (sites like tech gizmo sellers, or technology news sites that don't focus on open source). Advertising on sites such as futureshop, bestbuy, zdnet or newyorktimes' tech page could help raise awareness.

haavard, I was trying to say that get in touch with coders (in their forums). This can:

a) Help people to know about Opera.
b) Save your time. If you will explain coders about Opera, they will test sites with Opera web browser too and make them Opera friendly. And it won't just explain 10 webmasters, it can reach thousands of them. So it just depends what you prefer. Contacting each webmaster manually, developing patches (or something) and have like 10 more Opera friendly web pages or you can do what I said and have thousands of Opera friendly pages.

Sorry if you don't understand me, I am just writing in hury :-)

By the way, I think that's a good idea to post in Opera forums, blogs, etc. But now tell me this:

If coder don't know about Opera, how can he know about Opera blog and read your message, for example: how to make Opera friendly web pages?

Will answer tomorrow, going to sleep now ;}

Also, some wands/cookies problems with Opera. Can't login anywhere, even pass is correct, no idea why, closing/opening doesn't help. Anyway, will check tomorrow.

I think what Opera needs is a simple message. Firefox is open source, free and customizable (extensions)... what about Opera? It's multi-platform (Opera everywhere! / Fridge, powered by Opera!), secure etc. It may not mean much to many people, but it could create a certain coolness ("the browser of the future") that attracts new users. Just select a few keywords and use them consistently in marketing. Furthermore, a simplified message implies that the browser shouldn't look too different from other applications. The default skin is way better than that of O7, but it would be even better if native style was the default skin. (Don't forget to get a new logo ) And finally, I think it is important to let new users know that there is a community of many many users willing to help them with any problems they may experience. Many first-time posters in forums come there quite frustrated after having read fansites, the knowledge base and other resources. What is missing is a single source of information that answers most basic questions. I've always thought it would be great to create a community-driven knowledge base where answers are provided to questions like:
- How can I read my Hotmail messages in Opera's Mail Client?
- What about HTML support in M2?
- What do I do when a page doesn't render correctly?
- How do I disable bittorrent support in Opera?
- How do I enable an external RSS reader?

These answers can all be found in the forums, but visitors will need to do advanced searches to include older threads in the results list.

I'd say you do a pretty good job. You can't fake a grassroots promotional effort (Well, Sony tries, but it rarely works.). And just because Firefox was able to become 'The cool browser' doesn't mean it's easy to do, in fact I'd say it would be pretty hard to just upsurp Firefox.
However you could encourage love through the wider web-sphere:

I'd increase Opera's visibility on other online communities like Smashing Magazine, css Zen Garden, Digg, Slashdot, Lifehacker, Wired Magazine etc. Talk to the proprietors of those sites and see about posting and/or promoting Opera related stories and running promotions through them.

Add one of those hateful Digg buttons to the desktop team's blog or the release page (yuck).

Form partnership with international grassroots/tech-savvy conventions to be the official browser of the event for kiosks, terminals, and presentations or just be a major sponsor with a booth and free opera stuff.

Be cool like Crayola and get a car named Opera.

Make more Opera Ninja comics, t-shirts, and desktops... I don't know if it will help but I sure would like 'em.

And I wouldn't let Google buy you, thats just crazy talk, Bill_P.

This last one isn't marketing but, Opera still isn't recognized as a ligit Browser by some major Web App software developers. I'd talk to companies like SunGard Higher Education and make sure the software they develop isn't snubbing Opera without ligitamate reason. Masking as IE shouldn't be required from a major developer of University web applications.

Originally posted by haavard:

Originally posted by DjiXas:

Opera team always complained that web coders ignores Opera web browser, but what else Opera did besides complaining?

Such as site patching or contacting sites directly, offering help if needed?

I have no doubt that a bad product with an effective advertising strategy will outsell a good product without a good strategy every time. Word of mouth has not the invisible promotional force of urban legend. But I have to wonder: Has opera or a marketing agent ever corralled a cross-section of opera virgins, asked them to try a list of bookmarks to some of the most popular sites of the day, then asked them to tell you what they think of opera?

I don't think they'd be criticizing the default skin or placement of buttons and toolbars. I don't think they'd be griping about missing features or configuration problems. The bookmarks would eliminate usability issues altogether. I think they'd be telling you or your marketing survey agent that opera seemed very slow and didn't display pages as well as whatever browser they had been using.

Opera is anything but slow and opera has not been idle in its efforts to display sites that are non-compliant with web (especially css) standards. But setting aside sites that actually block opera, their surfing experience would not, I suspect, fill them with the fire of evangelists. The 9.23 final linux version, for instance, crashes or slows to a crawl on this extremely ponderous form-filled website,

http://www.tui.com/de/

even though it presumably does not block opera and is correctly rendered in quirks mode (considering the 600 coding errors). But firefox renders it in 20 seconds flat on this 10-year old machine without any complaint.

At the end of the day, if the product cannot sell itself, no marketing campaign is likely to overcome _bad_ press from disaffected and disgruntled users and reviewers who approach it as new users. Either render rogue sites at least as well as your competitors or throw good advertising money after bad. Do what firefox does, but do it faster and with less bloat so that virgin users, reviewers and those who appreciate the difference will feel the benefits, will be encouraged to adopt opera and will talk it up. Once opera is up to the virgin trials, I believe effective advertising will begin to have the desired effect.

Originally posted by piper_noiter:

I'd increase Opera's visibility on other online communities like Smashing Magazine, css Zen Garden, Digg, Slashdot, Lifehacker, Wired Magazine etc.

I actually would refrain from advertising on open-source evangelistic or very techy sites like Slashdot. That group of people already knows about alternative browsers, and people there often prefer open-source stuff no matter what. I don't believe that's the group Opera should target. Anyway, Opera already gets headlines there. Maybe a digg button could help, as someone already said.

But, IMHO, Opera should try to target IE users. That's the largest group of users, and the security argument is more likely to get to them. A line like "Tired of getting spyware through your Internet browser? Get the Opera browser for free" would work great.

Since Yahoo! seems to be Opera's new friend, maybe Opera could try to get some advertising done there, since Yahoo! users are more inclined to try new things (I think). Well, maybe not Yahoo, I don't know, Opera would have to get Yahoo to fix their mail beta first I guess.

I think Opera's target audience should be young people (i.e. people that know what a browser is!) and people somewhat interested in tech but not necesserally experts (because techies are mostly already aware of Opera's existence).

You're right, Luchio, I.E. users are a better way to go. As you say, they're more likely to be receptive to a closed-source browser. I obviously wasn't thinking that aspect through.

Targeting college freshmen and High School students is a good bet. They're willing to learn new things and college is often the first time they have their own personal computer. However, they're also stuck using campus software from SunGard (see previous post). I don't know how wide spread SunGard is, but I've never visited a college in the US that doesn't use it. Conflicts like that made it hard for me to recommend Opera to other students.

Note: I started using Slashdot six years ago when I was a college freshman, the same year I started using Opera as my main browser.

David and his team will contact sites that break Opera and work with them to fix it, or Hallvord and those involved in site patching will create a patch for important sites.

To be honest, I don't think this is the biggest hinder for people to move to Opera, and use it as their default browser. Both David, and Hallvord are incredible skilled persons, and their teams are doing a great job. With their work as well as Firefox gaining ground, there are seldom pages (other than MS, google) that won't render well enough for me to annoyed about it (I might just be ignorant, or lucky concerning this matter though). Just want to add that I really respect and admire their work and passion for what they do, and it is easy to see they both like their work. I hope they continue this path for a long time.

What is missing is a single source of information that answers most basic questions. I've always thought it would be great to create a community-driven knowledge base where answers are provided to questions like:

This is what I was trying to talk about. Why doesn't this happen? What is stopping the community to help them selves and Opera. For some reason it works for Firefox, but it just doesn't seem to happen for Opera.

• Is the user base too small?
  
• Does Opera users lack the skills to pull this off?
  
• Are Opera users too lazy and used to get Opera employees to do it all for them?
  

I personally don't think any of the above is true, but there has to be some reason. I don't think I am able to answer the question my self, so any input would be appreciated. I can only answer for my self, and to be honest, I have been pondering on an idea for a while. But ideas like this usually takes quite a lot of time to pull off. And I constantly worry about putting to much time into anything like this because you never know what Opera has cooked up tomorrow. It would be both sad and annoying to put in a couple of months worth of effort and getting close to something usable, and then Opera release something equivalent, witch would render your idea useless, unless you want to compete, which is not desirable by any of the "parts". It might just be me being paranoid here, but this is at least my thoughts on the community side of the marketing topic.


- ØØ -

Haavard, I accept your rebuke and I apologise. I doubt that the issue is really product vs marketing as you so delicately put it. I think recriminations (e.g. product criticism) have no place in any such discussion as this.

Brainstorming is important, and you get to choose the topic. However, fwiw, I believe that the flow of ideas needs to be harnessed -- harnessed not immediately and directly to the implicit goal (an effective marketing plan), but first to the information requirements of sound analysis that any supporting strategy demands.

The first phase of any good plan is analystical. In relation to the goal, what are the problems? -- all the problems, exactly? That's were good planning always begins. Not: How can we increase market share through more effective marketing? But, rather: Why is our market share not growing by leaps and bounds in this or that market?

If the current topic came to your mind first, then I hope it's not offensive to say that much. If the topic was suggested to you by someone who is engaged in planning a strategy already, then the planner may be off on the wrong foot for reasons any planner should recognise: failure to focus the flow of ideas on the specific problem(s) to be solved, one by one, after they have been identified. Existing marketing plans may not be effective, in other words, but the problem is not ineffective marketing, it's stagnant market share (working assumption).

In an earlier life, I worked as a planner on large government (non-IT) projects, and even as an instructor to military planners. I suppose that's why the importance of precise definition of problems comes so readily to mind. The adage is that if you don't define your problem correctly, your plan may very well succeed in solving the wrong problem. So, without getting into methodology or trying to pervert your intentions, let me close with a question -- if not for this blogpost then for any related one you may devise to the same end.

Apart from favourable circumstances of the strategic environment (e.g early entry into a relatively open market in hyper-expansion), how does the user profile of opera for miniature devices differ from the profile of desktop users? Who are they? where are they? What freedom of choice do they enjoy that desktop users may not? And why?

I'll stay out that discussion, since the input must come from those who know the facts. But I predict that lots of good (i.e., pertinent) marketing ideas will flow from any such analysis.

Go talk to major universities across the world. See if you can have Opera installed on all their public machines as the default browser, with free technical support. (i.e. make sure Opera is configurable through the Active Directory instead of through an ini file).

At least this would create awareness under students.

Originally posted by haavard:

... No one suggests what I write about here. That is my choice alone.

Don't doubt that. But I figure that either great opera minds think alike or all the pile driver thunking stirred up some sediment in the virtual water cooler.

http://operawatch.com/news/2007/08/feedback-request-what-should-we-do-to-enhance-operas-website.html

Originally posted by andol:

Opera, which is often not even mentioned by its name - it's called an Internet Channel, the Web Browser, or something

Originally posted by haavard:

Our logo is on the Wii package, though. It also includes a bookmark which links to my.opera.com, though, and it shows the "Opera Powered" slogan in various places. The latter is true for other Opera powered devices as well.

It's not so obvious for the IT journalists, so what can we expect when it comes to an average device user?

P.S. Too bad, that we still lack trackbacks here.

Originally posted by haavard:

Not being a PR/marketing guy myself, I don't really know a whole lot about these things...

That may not be such a bad thing.