Conference 7.286::digital

    See no Evil.....
    Hear no Evil......
    Speak no Evil......is this a sequential add campaign:-)
    
    It's certainly eye catching.

    See no Evil.....
           Hear no Evil......
             Speak no Evil
                        BUT TFSO!!!!!

    
    	www.windows.digital.com
    
    	then click the chimp.
    

    yea, excuse me, is it a monkey or a chimpanzee which is supposedly
    on someones (our  customers) back?    I think there is a difference.
    
    if we can't get our ad's right, _________  (fill in the blank).
    
    just wondering,
    /sb

    yep - that's what I thought - What a chump!  (er chimp)
    
    By the way what does "Monkey on your Back" translate to?  It is not an
    expression I am familiar with.  Does it have in [under|over]tones?
    
    /Chris/
    
    

    
    Chimpanzees and monkeys are both primates, but chimpanzees are not
    monkeys.  Apes are of the family Pongidae, and monkeys of the family
    Cercopithecidae or Cebidae.
    
    The ad is incorrect.
    

"Monkey on his back" originally = "drug addict".  Now means "an intractable
problem".

___Pete

    I thought that "monkey on your back" was a reference to a person's
    addiction to a substance such as alcohol or drugs.  I wasn't aware
    that it had any "new" meaning.  And if I'm not aware of any such
    new meaning, it's a safe bet that at least some of our customers
    are also unaware of any other interpretation of this phrase.
    
    Presumably such customers are as confused about all this chimp
    stuff as I am...
    
    Chris

  I must hang out in bad/old circles. To me, "Monkey on his/her
  back" still means heroin addict or other needle junkie.  I'd
  *NEVER* have used the phrase in an ad.

  Someone's too likely to reply: "Oh, still strung out on VMS?" :-)

                                   Atlant

    Street slang for needing a fix, or drying out. Either way the pain
    feels like having a monkey on your back.

    
    From Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:
    
      monkey... 4: a desperate desire for or addiction to drugs -- often used
      in the phrase "monkey on one's back"; broadly: a persistent or annoying
      encumberance or problem
    
    I've heard the broader meaning used more frequently in recent
    years than the narrower addiction reference. (Then again, maybe I
    should replay some of those conversations...)
    

    I stand corrected
    

    Locally we have been hearing radio ads for IBM (I think) where someone
    is choosing between a pet and a PC. One of the ads uses a monkey as the
    "pet comparison unit". The monkey does all kinds of wonderful things
    like charging x pounds of bananas on the owners credit card etc.
    so of course you would rather buy the PC.
    
    Maybe we use the same agency?
    
    r
    
    Atlant, to me the phrase "xxx is like a monkey on his back" is not
    completely foreign - even though I couldn't tell you where I last heard
    it. I guess you've just been leading a sheltered life!?!
    
    8^)
    

.10>  						Either way the pain
.10>    feels like having a monkey on your back.
    
    I don't think it's a matter of pain so much as the difficulty of
    removing a persistent monkey from your back.
    
    Great opportunities for a cartoon caricature here:
    
    	Human	    Monkey	
        -------	    ------
        Citizen	    IRS (USA only)
    	PC User	    Microsoft
        DEC Stock   _______ (your choice here)

See below for the description from the Livewire story.

Check it out online at http://vtxgwy.imc.das.dec.com/cgi-bin/vtx

   In a series of ads, the campaign features the proverbial "Monkey 
   on Your Back," using a chimpanzee to both symbolize and empathize with 
   the managers' challenges as they go through this migration.  Each ad 
   clearly states how Digital provides the solution to the managers' 
   specific needs.  The advertising themes address critical Windows NT 
   migration issues such as:
   
         o  "Satisfying your end users"
   
         o  "Investing in Windows NT without throwing away the 
            investments you have made in other systems"
   
         o  "Choosing the right hardware to run your Windows NT 
            software"
   
         o  "Migrating to Windows NT without blowing your budget"
   

    I haven't seen the actual add yet however word from our folks in Asia
    Pacific is that they have some problems with it - monkeys are good luck 
    symbols to Buddhists and I'm sure this is not reflected in the copy.
    
    I would have thought a "worldwide" add campaign would have taken these
    cultural issues into account.
    
       
    

    
    
    meet your new boss..."Cheeta the Chimp"
    
  

>    Locally we have been hearing radio ads for IBM (I think) where someone
>    is choosing between a pet and a PC. One of the ads uses a monkey as the
>    "pet comparison unit". The monkey does all kinds of wonderful things
>    like charging x pounds of bananas on the owners credit card etc.
>    so of course you would rather buy the PC.

Another outcome.  From The New Yorker, about 1986 or so.  Very interesting,
given hindsight.
...........................................................................

Man, Bytes, Dog

Many people have asked me about the Cairn Terrier.  How about memory, they
want to know.  Is it I.B.M.-compatible [sic]?  Why didn't I get the I.B.M.
itself, or a Kaypro, Compaq, or Macintosh?  I think the best way to answer
these questions is to look at the Macintosh and the Cairn head on.  I
almost did buy the Macintosh.  It has terrific graphics, good
word-processing capabilities, and the mouse.  But in the end I decided on
the Cairn, and I think I made the right decision.

Let's start out with the basics:

        Macintosh:
                Weight (without printer): 20 lbs.
                Memory (RAM): 128K
                Price (with printer): $3,090

        Cairn Terrier:
                Weight (without printer): 14 lbs.
                Memory (RAM): Some
                Price (without printer): $250

Just on the basis of price and weight, the choice is obvious.  Another plus
is that the Cairn Terrier comes in one unit.  No printer is necessary, or
useful.  And -- this was a big attraction to me -- there is no user's
manual.

Here are some of the other qualities I found put the Cairn out ahead of the
Macintosh:

Portability: To give you a better idea of size, Toto in "The Wizard of Oz"
was a Cairn Terrier.  So you can see that if the young Judy Garland was
able to carry Toto around in that little picnic basket, you will have no
trouble at all moving your Cairn from place to place.  For short trips it
will move under its own power.  The Macintosh will not.

Reliability: In five to ten years, I am sure, the Macintosh will be
superseded by a new model, like the Delicious or the Granny Smith.  The
Cairn Terrier, on the other hand, has held its share of the market with
only minor modifications for hundreds of years.  In the short term, Cairns
seldom need servicing, apart from shots and the odd worming, and most
function without interruption during electrical storms.

Compatibility:  Cairn Terriers get along with everyone.  And for
communications with any other dog, of any breed, within a radius of three
miles, no additional hardware is necessary.  All dogs share a common
operating system.

Software:  The Cairn will run three standard programs, SIT, COME, and NO,
and whatever else you create.  It is true that, being microcanine, the
Cairn is limited here, but it does load the programs instantaneously.  No
disk drives.  No tapes.

Admittedly, these are peripheral advantages.  The real comparison has to be
on the basis of capabilities.  What can the Macintosh and the Cairn do?
Let's start on the Macintosh's turf -- income tax preparation, recipe
storage, graphics, and astrophysics problems:

                      Taxes   Recipes   Graphics   Astrophysics
        Macintosh      yes      yes        yes         yes
        Cairn          no       no         no          no

At first glance it looks bad for the Cairn.  But it's important to look
beneath the surface with this kind of chart.  If you yourself are leaning
toward the Macintosh, ask yourself these questions: Do you want to do your
own income taxes?  Do you want to type all your recipes into a computer?
In your graph, what would you put on the x axis?  The y axis?  Do you have
any astrophysics problems you want solved?

Then consider the Cairn's specialities: playing fetch and tug-of-war,
licking your face, and chasing foxes out of rock cairns (eponymously).
Note that no software is necessary.  All these functions are part of the
operating system:

                      Fetch   Tug-of-war   Face       Foxes
        Macintosh      yes      yes        yes         yes
        Cairn          no       no         no          no

Another point to keep in mind is that computers, even the Macintosh, only
do what you tell them to do.  Cairns perform their functions all on their
own.  Here are some of the additional capabilities that I discovered once I
got the Cairn home and housebroken:

Word Processing:  Remarkably, the Cairn seems to understand every word I
say.  He has a nice way of pricking up his ears at words like "out" or
"ball."  He also has highly tuned voice-recognition.

Education:  The Cairn provides children with hands-on experience at an
early age, contributing to social interaction, crawling ability, and
language skills.  At age one, my daughter could say "Sit," "Come," and
"No."

Cleaning:  This function was a pleasant surprise.  But of course cleaning
up around the cave is one of the reasons dogs were developed in the first
place.  Users with young (below age two) children will still find this
function useful.  The Cairn Terrier cleans the floor, spoons, bib, and
baby, and has an unerring ability to distinguish strained peas from ears,
nose, and fingers.

Psychotherapy:  Here the Cairn really shines.  And remember, therapy is
something that computers have tried.  There is a program that makes the
computer ask you questions when you tell it your problems.  You say, "I'm
afraid of foxes."  The computer says, "You're afraid of foxes?"

The Cairn won't give you that kind of echo.  Like Freudian analysts, Cairns
are mercifully silent; unlike Freudians, they are infinitely sympathetic.
I've found that the Cairn will share, in a nonjudgmental fashion,
disappointments, joys, and frustrations.  And you don't have to know BASIC.

This last capability is related to the Cairn's strongest point, which was
the final deciding factor in my decision against the Macintosh -- user
friendliness.  On this criterion, there is is simply no comparison.  The
Cairn Terrier is the essence of user-friendliness.  It has fur, it doesn't
flicker when you look at it, and it wags it tail.

        James Gorman

    I was disappointed with the ad ran in the Wall Street Journal.  Who
    wrote that text?  
    
    	"And now that Windows NT 4.0 lets you users access mission-critical
    	information right from their desktops and laptops, how do you
    	ensure data availability?  The most reliable way is through
    	clustering -- a technology one company was first to develop for
    	Windows NT to ensure automatic failover and maximum availability."
    
    Yuck!  Why could we say something along the lines of "Digital, the
    industry leader in cluster technology, was first to offer clustering
    under NT?"  Instead, we don't even mention that the "one company"
    was Digital!
    
    And what does it mean if my "data will flow seamlessly across
    platforms."   Seamless access I'd like.  I'm not sure I want "seamless
    flow."
    
    The potential drug connontations of "monkey on your back" bothered me 
    as well.
    
    Jim

> All dogs share a common operating system.

  And it's Dog OS ("DOS"), of course; a real dog OS.

                                   Atlant

    I just logged into the Digital external home page.  I had not heard
    about the '12 Monkeys' ad series, so I wasn't sure if this was a
    delayed April Fools page or the real thing.  Unfortunately, it was the
    real thing....or whatever our Corporate Ad Agency du jour thinks is the
    real thing.  Somehow, in light of the current sales figures, having a
    monkey/chimp/(you name it goofy looking animal) doesn't strike me as
    the best possible business message to put in front of decision makers.
    Who is the monkey here?  The MIS manager?  Senior managers? PC users?
    I'd heard we were going to launch a strategic new ad campaign during
    Bob Palmer's last DVN....was this it?  Well, let's hope the chimp
    didn't leave a banana peal lying about somewhere.

    re: .21
    
    Agreed.  Yesterday I had occasion to visit the Digital external web
    page... as I saw the interleaved-GIF simian face materialize before
    me, I thought "You've GOTTA be kidding!"  I too was not aware of the ad
    campaigns (how's that for stealth marketing?).  With the Web page
    designed as it is, any casual surfer is going to associate the *monkey*
    with *DIGITAL*!  **ANY** first-year design student could tell you
    that!!
    
    Speaking of design goofs, the most prominent feature on that image is
    the monkey's gleaming teeth... so much so that it overwhelms the
    "monkey-on-your-back" text that goes with it.  So people REALLY aren't
    going to get the message!
    
    Maybe we oughta cancel our contracts with the multi-million dollar ad
    agencies and hire first-year design students?  They sure can't do any
    worse!
    
    Mr. Palmer, you reading this?  For a measly *ONE* million dollars a
    year my-wife-the-artist and I will do **ALL** of your graphics and 
    Web design 8-) 8-) 8-)  You'll save enough to give 411 back to the 
    troops 8-)
    
    --jim
    

Of course, that second chart should read:


                      Fetch   Tug-of-war   Face       Foxes
        Macintosh      no       no         no          no
        Cairn          yes      yes        yes         yes


Thanks to Atlant Schmidt for pointing out the error.

    I just can't resist:
    
    			"Hey Hey for the Monkeys...."
    
    Mav

    http://194.17.237.123/freeweb/monkees/

    
    "The Digital Monkey"
    
    (that just not sound good at all).
    
    

    you know what?   I'm still thinking about all of this.
    
    I see it like this, ... 
    
    we are attempting to imply that our customers, and potential customers,
    that they have a "monkey on their back".   In this context, the "monkey 
    on their back", is the fact that they made a wrong discission in getting
    "hooked"  on another vendors product set.     "Hey, Customer, you dida
    bad thing!  You did a wrong thing!"   Customer goes on defense, and
    says to the nice person in the white jacket (sales rep), "Git outta
    here!"  
    
    yea, maybe the customer purhcased another vendors products, who am I to
    say they've made a mistake?  I'd like to show them a product which they
    may like. It might be even better than the competitors.  I'll leave
    that for the customer to decide.   is it an attitude thing?
    
    I like "Shock the monkey, hey, hey",     geeze, somebody needs a good
    shock treatment.  
    
    /sb
   
    the chimp is probably a vp too!
    
     	      

I loved the terrier story. That said, I don't think the ads are all
that bad. Great no, but not bad. Remember the audience. This is not
for techies. It's for those VPs we all so fond of. liesl

>    By the way what does "Monkey on your Back" translate to?  It is not an
>    expression I am familiar with.  Does it have in [under|over]tones?

Chris,

It means that something is weighing you down without doing anything useful


Cheerz

>                     <<< Note 4838.16 by POWDML::HUNTER >>>
>                    -< "It's my turn to carry the monkey" >-
>
>    I haven't seen the actual add yet however word from our folks in Asia
>    Pacific is that they have some problems with it - monkeys are good luck 
>    symbols to Buddhists and I'm sure this is not reflected in the copy.
>    
>    I would have thought a "worldwide" add campaign would have taken these
>    cultural issues into account.
>

I'm glad to see that there is at least one optimist left in the company.
Over the ten years I've been with the company, Digital has NEVER NEVER
cut the mustard when it comes to dealing with the (was 50% is now >66%)
majority of the marketplace which is outside the USA.    
       
Repeat after me ... Digital is an American company trying to do business
in an international marketplace. It is not, and probably never will be
an international company at home with the complexities of international
business.

    
    If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
    
    The expression 'a monkey on your shoulder' is not known in Holland. So we
    might get some feedback from customers like. "Does DEC think IT
    managers are monkeys?"
    Anyway, predicting is difficult, especially when it cencerns the
    future.
    
    Regards,
    
    Aad.

At least we are marketing, getting our name out there.  Maybe a little
controversial ad campaign will help...

    Re .31 - if you pay peanuts, you get elephants - rumor has it
    that monkeys prefer bananas.
    
    

    Last night I had the opportunity to catch up on some business reading
    (e.g. PC Week, Info Week,etc.)  Every magazine I opened had the
    multi-page monkey advertisement you all are referring to.  A few
    observations on my admittedly humble part:
    
    1. At first glance I was disappointed that this is what we likely spent
    at least a million $ for, from some "prestigious" ad agency (ever
    wonder why all these "prestigious" agencies seem to be totally out of
    touch with normal, middle-class Americans?)  But I began to change some
    the more I saw it.
    
    2. I was not repelled by the "monkey on your back" wording.  I knew
    exactly what they were implying, but I can understand why some of our
    international noters would be concerned or disturbed by the use of the
    chimp.  Didn't this ad agency learn from the auto companies mistakes
    years ago in naming cars for foreign markets that were insulting or
    derogatory when translated?  You would think a "prestigious" ad agency
    would know better, or do some market research before releasing it for
    international consumption.
    
    3. You have to admit that the advertisement gets your attention - you
    can't help but notice it.  We can all debate the merits of the text,
    which I thought was the typical dry, sterile Digital wording, but it
    does get attention.  For that alone I would rate it a plus compared to
    our recent efforts.
    
    Has anyone seen the new Little Caeser's advertisement for their giant
    pizza?  The one whose tag line is that everything pales in comparison
    to the size of this pizza, that has a few vignettes ending with the old
    couple in the honeymoon suite?  People love this advertisement, from
    young to old.  I'm not suggesting that we advertise like this (although
    it might be interesting to do so).  I'm suggesting that we use an
    agency that has the ability to come up with a consistent, creative
    theme that basically strikes a chord in a broad audience.  And if it
    shocks a little, so what - you were looking for attention anyways.  The
    agency we currently have is trying, but they aren't hacking it.  And
    for the $ Digital is shelling out, I'm sure we can get a good quality
    agency, ala the Little Caeser's group, to come up with a winning
    formula for us.
    
    So while the jury is still out, the monkey on your back advertisement
    seems to be a start, but with a long ways to go, IMHO.
    
    Chuck

    Maybe we need the folks that did the Miller Lite commercials of a few
    years ago.  Imagine Dick Butkus with a PC that wasn't booting properly?
    Or "the Doll" with all 64 bits? 
    
    	Ted

    At least we're finally advertising, let's give the company credit for
    that.  It would be great if we had something as creative as the current
    Nissan commercials, but something is better that nothing.  Meanwhile,
    has anyone else noticed that the Ford commercials out now seem to be
    duplicates of the old Dec advertising?  The music sounds the same, and
    the label-maker type overlays are used.  Wonder if this is the same
    agency recycling.
    

    
    	Hire Putney Swope.
    

     What I see from here is this...

     "Choosing the best hardware to run Windows NT 4.0, 
    has forced managers to confront their biggest fears:" (continue)

    "Failure...Finances...Future..." I don't have time to read the fine print, 
    but the pictures are worth AT least 1000 words. But then, maybe I'm just 
    seeing things the way I want to see them? First impressions are usually
    the best though.
    
     Bob

    re: .34
    
    I'm only a lowly techie engineer but my guess is that there
    is probably a great difference in advertising pizza versus
    advertising high tech equipment.  Those Little Caesar's pizza
    commercials ARE great and I always look forward to seeing them.
    So you're saying that Digital should take a similiar approach
    in making advertisements that are funny and geared towards
    a broad audience.  Fine, maybe I'd look forward to seeing Digital
    commercials so I can get a laugh.  But there will always be one
    difference...after seeing the Little Ceaser commercial I might
    be persuaded in spending $10 for a pizza...after seeing a Digital
    commercial no matter how funny or great I thought the ad were,
    I doubt I be persuaded in spending $8,000 for a router or something...
    
    especially when I could buy 800 pizzas with it ! ;)
    
    Shane
    

    
    An ad is a waste of money, if no one reads it.
    
    I'll bet more people read the monkey ad than read
    the Oracle ad or cpu ads with spec-mark charts in them.
                                  
    

    Alpha-alpha!
    
    
    Wonder how Bob Palmer looks in a Toga with Laurel Wreath on his head?
    
    Delivery-delivery!
    
    
    Dave
    
    
    

    
    Newsgroups:  comp.sys.dec
    From:        [email protected] (Terry C. Shannon )
    Subject:	 DECchimp21x64 
    Sender: 	 [email protected] (Mr Usenet Himself)
    Message-ID:	 <[email protected]>
    Date: 	 Mon, 9 Sep 1996 10:14:38 GMT 
    Nntp-Posting-Host:  world.std.com 
    Organization: Shannon Knows DEC 
    Lines:       3 
    
    Rumour has it that DEC has added a new dimension to the "Champ to Chump"
    cycle with today's debut of
    a chimpanzee-based advertising campaign.
    
    

    I recently saw another of these monkey adds in a magazine, and
    with my own personal outsourcing experience still current in
    my mind, I realized the REAL reason for this ad campaign ....
    
    As part of its on-going effort to get costs under control, DIGITAL
    is planning on initiating a land breaking new policy of replacing
    it human employees with monkeys.  The ads are a way of pre-conditioning
    customers for this change.  Because of the ads, when a customer logs a 
    field service call and a chimpanzee shows up at the door, they'll just
    let him in.  When they call a support number and the phone is
    answered with "Ook, ook, ook?", they'll understand.
    
    For those people who really want to remain with DIGITAL, it's time
    to start calling around to the local costume shops.
    
    Vince
         

	I saw some monkeys on a Microsoft Windows NT Workstation
	advert on a web page. I think it was cnet.com. 

							mike

In the late 60s (yeah, I know this dates me), there was a cartoon in which
some distinguished, well-dressed visitors were being given a guided tour of the
computing facilities.  They were looking through a plate-glass wall at a monkey
sitting behind a computer console (CRTs weren't prevalent yet, son) typing in 
commands.

The tour guide was explaining, "We have completely eliminated the possibility
of human error from our computer systems."

/Paul

    re: .35
    
    >As part of its on-going effort to get costs under control, DIGITAL
    >is planning on initiating a land breaking new policy of replacing it 
    >human employees with monkeys.
    
    I believe this comes under the heading: "Whatever it takes"
    
    /dave  ;^)

    According to verbal information passed on by Bruce Claflin, the Monkey
    Ad campaign is very benificial.
    
    Some studies have come back, analysis of readers of Fortune Magazine,
    Wall Street Journal, etc...
    
    Most of the readership cannot remember the content of the BMW or
    Mercedes or IBM ad's, just that they were there. On the other hand, the
    readship remember the DIGITAL Ad's, much of the content and that we
    were really there in the magazine.
    
    Don't knock it folks, the Monkey Ad's work, and they appeal to many IS
    people.
    
    rtt

    Great. They remember the content of the ads. Good metric for an ad
    agency, that. We're not an ad agency.
    
    Why not ask the people who remember the content of the ads, what it is
    that DIGITAL sells, who our competitors are, etc, and see if the
    results are as impressive.
    
    regards
    john

    In a long-ago time I was involved in some advertising at DEC. I was often
    presented with reams of study data the ad agencies used to 'prove' how
    effective their ads were. I think there was always a study to prove
    every ad was doing exatly what the client objective required.
    
    Of course, the same people will swear that TV programs have no effect
    whatsovever on the behavior of children.
    
    Take ad agency studies with big grains of salt.

    I may be a software engineer by trade - but one of my majors in
    school was marketing research.
    
    Yup - you can pretty much get statistics to tell you whatever you
    want to hear.  But - there is one that can't be fudged with too much.
    
    What did your sales look like before you started the campaign - and
    what do they look like now.  However - even that may not be an
    indication of how well the ads are doing.
    
    What we need is further proof.
    How's about if we check the grocery stores to see what banana sales
    looked like before we started the campaign - and how they're doing now.

RE: .70

	I think our sales numbers are speaking for themselves. 

							mike

    I would like to see how much additional dollars of revenue these
    ads generated.