Not something I would want to have related to Flex, looks like a children’s newpaper cut out project with colors gone wrong.

Not something I would want to have related to Flex, looks like a children’s newpaper cut out project with colors gone wrong.

Wow!!! I’m speechless. It pains the eye a bit!

I guess the tags are an inside MXML joke I guess but I doubt that anyone looking into Flex 2 will get it if they haven’t started using the tool yet.

This does look bad. Its not really pioneered either. There have been way too many ads already done in a “ransom” note style that aesthicly are a lot better. Bad avenue to take when trying to promote this against AJAX; towards RIA developers.

It’s not necessarily that horrible, but it’s pretty horrible for a Flex ad.

Not to mention that the tags are wrong! (Notice, the opening tag is actually closed!) That ad wouldn’t even compile

This campaign is very unprofessional in appearance. I feel like I’m looking at a messy IRC channel. Code is ugly, but they could have done a better job. I’ve been seeing some ads lately for the Dice.com job site that use code much more effectively.

Flex is meant for developing Rich Internet Applications. These currently have a cool vibe in the tech industry. The advertisements for a tool designed to make them should look just as cool. Similarly, managers will have the final say in purchasing a product. They’ll want to see some crisp design behind the marketing for it. Adobe’s logo won’t be enough.

Based on previous ads that I’ve seen that didn’t even say what Flex should be used for, I’m guessing that Adobe hasn’t quite figured out how they want to position this product. I’m disappointed.

I’m glad I’m not crazy. I can’t for the life of me figure out what the goal here is. Is there an audience? I just don’t think it makes Flex 2 enticing at all.

I don’t think it conveys anything about Flex 2. Honestly- reflex is to get off the page withouta areal thorough look.

Thanks for the feedback. We hear you. We’re pulling the plug on this creative execution for the Flex 2 online advertising campaign. Please pardon our dust while we regroup. Please read on, because we’re going to need your help to make this better.

It’s great to have a product that everybody loves so deeply that they fuss about every factor contributing to it’s market success, including the creative direction of the online advertising. Our community rocks. Thank you!

In the spirit of openness and transparency, let me provide a little backstory on this campaign. The short version is that it ended up being a bad execution on some solid original concepts that came directly from developers just like you. Our agency actually did roll up their sleeves and get out there and interview (and film) real Flex and non-Flex developers to get inside their head and to test some concepts. The original concepts for this campaign tested really well with the developers, but we somehow lost our way as the creative progressed from concept to actual banners injected into a page. Oops. Our internal review processes certainly should have stopped it earlier, and I’m going to be looking into that, but we are where we are.

So where do we go from here? I think it might be useful to apply some collaborative community feedback approaches to the development of Flex developer marketing. It’s clear that you guys have a lot of passion about this, and I would love to harness that as long as it ends up producing marketing that works. We all have a stake in that.

So here’s the invitation: please jump on this thread with your specific suggestions for what the Flex online advertising should say and what is should look like. What should the tone be (sophisticated, edgy, friendly, in your face, or what have you)? What should the catchy tag line be? What should the short product description be? What benefits, if any, should we mention right in the ad and what should be on the jump page? Should we bang directly on the competition (think Oracle ads) or should we focus on our own strengths? What creative concepts should we consider (code puzzles that convey a message, movies of Flex coding/results, what else)?

This is your chance to tell us how it should be done. Let us have it. We’ll parse it and see what we can come up with. We may even come back to you to test some stuff before we throw it up on TechCrunch again.

Thanks,

Jeff Whatcott
Sr. Director, Produt Marketing
Enterprise & Developer Busines Unit
Adobe Systems
jeff.whatcott@adobe.com

Jeff, that’s great news! And I really appreciate you coming here and letting us know what’s going on from your side. I’m sure we’ll get a lot of good ideas – I’m going to brainstorm tonight and see what I can come up with.

No, you really don’t want to ‘to do an Oracle’ and bang the other things people may be using, or say your ‘unbreakable’ or anything like that. It creates a negative impression.
I’m with the comments over @ http://www.digitalbackcountry.com/index.cfm/2006/7/20/Help-Adobe-With-the-Flex-2-Advertising-Campaign – target developers with something fun, maybe showing how simple MXML is over DHTML (one less letter to type !) for remote object access.
The other people are either manages (so tell them it’s good ROI, fast to market) or designers (look, it looks great and is easy to skin).

I think Matt Voerman really hit on an excellent point with the cross platform thing. Not only do we have a new tool to build rich and complex web connected applications, with really a whole new paradigm for managing the code and assets in a more efficient way, the apps run almost anywhere. I think this is a big attractor.

I also think you should not do ads that knock on the competition. One quick thought I had was to have part of the ad be a quick mxml app like . Then on the other part of the app show pictures. The idea is not centered on Flickr but something that shows code and a snapshot of what it does. Maybe something Flex-AJAX, or Flex Push technology where you have a couple snapshots sync together.

Or statements like “7 lines of code can get you this?” and show a RIA app built with 7 lines of code. Thats my quick ideas hope it helps.

Thanks for the good ideas. I really like the suggestions for code samples in the ads. Please give us compilable examples of more of these.

Jeff W.

Hold another developer contest, where the prize is being featured in banner adds. The winners get some free marketing to attract end-users, and Adobe gets additional sample apps to show off. Define prize categories that will naturally show off where Flex stands out compared with other solutions, and use taglines that describe the primary benefit the winning app derived from Flex.

Update: While we figure out the new creative direction, we’re going to revert back to the ads that we had running before the Guru Logic ads. That was the “go Beyond Ajax with Flex” ads. I know these aren’t the community favorite either, but they do have the virtue of being very effective. The download response rates for these have been well above industry average, and we have several months of experience with them. This is an interim measure.

I wanted to give the community a heads up here so that no one assumes that we’ve started a new campaign without gathering feedback as promised. Stay tuned for more info and keep the feedback coming.

Jeff W.

I went ahead and gave my idea a whirl, its not quite that small of code but still might work.

You can find it here, My Adobe Flex Ad Idea.

Its also an example of how to use the Adobe Flickr AS3 library in Flex.

Jeff, I like the idea of the “Beyond Ajax” campaign even if I think the message is a bit ambiguous. I know some people don’t like to position Flex and Ajax as competitors, but as an Ajax developer, you get to a point where coding a web application in Ajax simply becomes too time consuming. When you reach that point, Flex is a fantastic way to pick up where Ajax leaves off. The fact that you can do so much in so little code should appeal to the business/developers that populate the federated media sites.

How you put that into ad form becomes the major question, but there have been some good suggestions here. I was absolutely blown away with how open and transparent you were here – we all win!

My response was a bit long-ish, so I made my own blog post:

http://www.cbetta.com/blog/index.cfm/2006/7/20/my-flex-ad-campaign-suggestions

I think the issue here is the same as I have trying to explain Flex to my clients: it’s just too tricky to explain until you see it.

Rather then pushing bits of code and the like at the outset the ads should be an invitation to show people what the web can be (catchy line?). Tease them first, wow them second. I reckon it makes an easier sell, that’s certainly what’s happening with my clients/team when trying to explain Flex.

Cheers,
Stewart

How about

“Ajax is dead,
flex is here,
are you a dumb lamer still using web 2.0
it isn’t 1992 any more ya know.
so get with the real world and use Web 31.1alpha
Flex moving you to Web 32.0
”
if not the exact wording hopefully some inspiration can come from that
just don’t use web 2.0
“Web 2.0″ is a major insult to the internet

What about a landing page with links to (and screenshots of) Flex 2 sample applications? I’m not sure how many we have out there that make for a good show, but has anyone tested the conversions on a landing page like that? Seems like, with the right application, it could be a great hook. If it’s source is viewable, then even better.

My response comes from being a ColdFusion developer that is looking at Ajax, but not Flex, because I’ve never been granted a clear message about what Flex is or does. The marketing I would suggest is as follows:

Tone: Creating Simplicity
This approach addresses both the power of the Flex (so few lines of code) and its comparative positioning in the market compared to any number of Ajax engines. It’s also the primary message as a developer that I want – I wish to avoid complex coding requirements that might change in version “point something.”

Catchy Tag Line: Refresh Live Data Not Your Web Page
Catchy Tag Line: Creating Simplicity For Live Data
I wanted to only provide one line, but in the end have chosen two. The focus is to describe to me (a non-Flex user) what the product does, and more importantly (actually, most important) what “bleeding wound” does this product solve for me? The catch line needs to describe what my pain is (live data – and it is a pain), and how it addresses my pain (through simplicity, or more specifically not refreshing a web page). In five to seven words I think this is accomplished.

Short Product Description:
Flex simplifies the display, creation, and updating of live data (images, text or from a spreadsheet or database) without the cumbersome and inaccurate requirement of reloading a complete page or dataset. Using Flex, push or pull what you need in real time to the user in an interface that reduces their complexity.

Key Word Benefits: Live Data, Reduced Complexity, Better Interfaces, Easy To Maintain, Low Learning Curve, Minimum Code, From Simple To Extreme Interactivite

Talking About Other Products In the Market: No
If you need to rely upon other products to define your own, then there is both a failure to clearly communicate the strengths of Flex, and you limit the advertising effectiveness to those already established with other market similar products. Indeed, you may notice that I’ve attempted to remove and limit any technical terms or talk from the above suggestions at all.

Creative Concepts: Limited
I’m pushing for simplicity, which means that puzzles or other complex messages should be avoided. I would create a very simple ad. Run the worlds first large scale flash ad that display live updating data.

Creative Concept Outlined:
A flash banner ad that indicates: “Flex Makes Live Data Possible”. The banner is streaming the list of live search terms used in Google, and not from a stored value. There are two clickable tag lines on this ad: “Click to see us prove this data is live” – which opens up a window to Google’s own page of streaming search terms used. Once that is clicked, the first clickable tag line changes to “And now see how we did this in Flex” – which clicks to Adobe and a brief demo about the ad.

That is my suggestion

Stephen Cassady
cassady at lopedia.com

Adobe has to advertise on television…I know how that sounds, but the decision makers are the ones who need to get excited about what Flex can do. Decision makers rarely read blogs and tech columns that push Flex, but television is the outlet that they will either see or will receive feedback through others.