Proposal for launch party incentives

Since GNOME 3.0 release will be a big step and important date for GNOME, in order to attract and encourage more parties from different corner of the world to host a launch party to celebrate and promote GNOME 3.0 together, it is suggested to give more supports so as goodies to all the organizing teams so they can better organize their parties. We can also make use of it to create more talking points to our target segments.

The Concept

For any party that registers their launch party on the GNOME website (we need a registration page) on or before 6th February 2011 (proposed date), they will be provided with some goodies to be used in the launch party. Proposed goodies are as below (with GNOME 3.0 celebration messages#):

Goodies

1. balloons (cheap and light to ship while very good in decoration as a party)
2. t-shirts (a few t-shirts only for the hosts)
3. stickers (give away to participants)
4. Button badges (give away to guests)
5. a few live CDs (GNOME 3.0) (for demo purpose)

Other ideas

1. GNOME annual report 2009 (it can show a general idea of what GNOME community was doing in the past year) (question: what's the weight? as it will increase the price of shipping)
2. Generic GNOME Banner (~2 meters x 0.5 meter with four holes on the corners)
3. Poster
4. More CDs (if we found sponsors)

# Either GNOME 3.0 logo or generic GNOME logo can be printed on each promotional materials with message of celebration of GNOME 3.0. # We can also consider to use the winning tshirt designs from http://www.gnome.org/contest/

Online Marketing Materials

It is suggested to have a set of marketing materials available online for local party organizers to download. The materials will be initially developed in English. Local organizing teams can translate into their own language freely.

1. TV commercial - short videos
2. Banner
3. Poster(s)
4. Print ad(s)
5. Web banner(s)
6. Flyer(s)
7. Brochure
8. Presentations

Production

• Goodies can be produced in Asian country e.g. China or Philippines or India
• Usually it takes a maximum of two weeks to produce everything proposed after sourcing, quality check and signing production contracts with the suppliers

Schedule

Estimated Budget

• If we target to provide goodies to 100 organizers, while providing banners to selected large scale parties
• If the goodies are produced in China, reference price for production is as below:

Average: around USD 48 / team # Banner size: (2m x 0.6m) # Banner weight: 0.5kg

Remarks:

1. All the above cost is for reference only (they were quoted for other purpose 6 months ago), some products have minimum order, lower quantity will increase the unit price. If there is remaining qty, we can either put them in a gnome webstore to sell them or send more to big parties (e.g. GNOME.Asia one)
2. For reference, if all the goodies are delivered by EMS (DHL / UPS will be used if EMS cannot reach), the delivery cost was on average 40 USD / package (2 kgs with 3 tshirts, ~20 balloons, ~10 button badges, 1 A4 flyer, ~10 stickers) - with a mix of Asian / European / America / Africa / other area. If we are okay without able to track the packages online (use non-famous couriers), the quotation can be down to ~30 USD for 2 kgs / package (it was quoted for other purpose 4 months ago, and the shipping cost was quoted based on 300 teams.)
3. We can further reduce the postage fee if there will be one guy in the USA / America one guy in Europe to take care of receiving all the goodies in one package in their regions and then send them separately to the organizers in their responsible region. That mean: China responsible person / team just send packages to those organizers in Asia, one package to Europe, one package to the USA / America. It should be the cheapest. (~ 20 USD / package)
4. If we use Option 1: EMS, it will cost 6,636 USD in total (without banner)
5. If we use Option 2: non famous courier without online tracking : we can save 1,000 USD, it will cost ~5636 USD (without banner)
6. if we use Option 3: somebodies in the other regions to unpack and send out packages : we will save ~2000 USD, it will cost ~4636 USD (without banner)
7. For tshirt design: 1 color tshirt printed with 2 color silk screen printing logo in the front and 1 color silk screen printing logo in the back

Artwork size

Graphic design:

1. Balloons (size: within 3cm x 3cm),
2. Stickers (size: within 4cm x 4cm)
3. Button badges (round shape: 6cm diameter)
4. Banners (2m x 0.5m)

Marketing channels

1. GNOME website
2. Selected GNOME mailing lists
3. Blogging

4. Approach GNOME / GNU/Linux / FOSS communities with mailing lists / forums / connections we can create and build a list of contacts that can be used in other campaign as well

5. Communicate @ GNU/Linux FOSS events / conferences
6. Social networks
7. Banners / articles in GNU/Linux / FOSS communities
8. Press release / banners in news-site
9. Magazines / newspapers ads
10. word of mouth
11. others

Other ideas

Marketing:

• To create a GNOME 3.0 launch party map to locate the teams
• To create a countdown in GNOME site and a countdown for teams to put in their websites / blogs
• To create "We'll be attending / I'll be attending" banners
• Encourage every team to tag photos to #gnome3.0party
• Encourage every team to tag blog posts to #gnome3.0party

Concerns

• Think about ways to avoid teams from registering just because of the goodies but without hosting a GNOME 3.0 party
• There maybe problems to ship CDs or other items in some countries as it may involve unreasonable tax, we should either check the custom / tax regulations by ourselves or talk to the registered teams to avoid paying unreasonable tax
• Based on experiences, if we use EMS, there was ~ 1% of package got lost during shipment, another ~ 1% of package got rejected by receivers due to unreasonable tax. If we use non-famous couriers, the rate of missing will be higher, ~ 3% .
• For some countries, it's possible that the packages got opened during the shipment and some items would be missing (e.g. lost 1 t-shirt out of 3).

Comments

• Max from Taiwan GNOME user group (going to host three launch parties in different districts in Taiwan) thought banners would be very useful.
• Brian / Pockey suggested to have two level of goodies. The decision will be upon request and review of a committee.
  1. large scale parties: will receive more tshirts and 1 banner
  2. smaller scale parties: will receive only 2-3 tshirts without banner
• Pockey suggested to use the design of tshirt contest for the goodies design while generic logo with the latest slogan for banners