[advocacy-discuss] Advocacy : SuperBowl half-time

[Ben Rockwood]

Renaud Manus wrote:
> Sun Microsystems was (is still?) already sponsoring F1
> but I think it went almost unnoticed.
>   

Sun was a sponsor of McLaren West Mercades F1 until 2007.  They had a
logo on the front of the side-mirrors.  As additional perks, Sun had one
of the mock chassis in (at least) its Menlo Park Executive Briefing
Center, and sometimes took it to shows such as JavaOne.  Sun also used
images of the car(s) in whitepapers, brochures and ads.



As for the comments of Rick N.... I was in no way suggesting that
American Football is for less intelligent persons.  The issue is rather
the cost.  It's widely known that SuperBowl ad time cost is in the
millions, and yet even more millions to come up with clever ads.  Given
that Sun's product line is now much lower end than, say, IBM's, will you
really get bang for your buck?  IBM, for instance is pimping
multi-million dollar products in its ads, not pSeries rack servers.  If
an IBM Pentaflop ad results in 10 contacts and that results of maybe 4
sales its all been worth it.

...but I'll speculate further.  To this new generation entering
adulthood and entering business, IBM doesn't have the recognition that
it once did.  For an american institution with such broad reach such as
IBM's, simply increasing brand awareness, no matter how vaguely, is of
value.


benr.