Mozilla’s 18-month effort to market without Facebook
I think Mozilla needs to re-think their whole marketing approach yesterday. A few remarks:<p>- 50% US / 50% "rest of the world"? Nah. There's little to no chance to make a strong dent in the US, home of Chrome and Apple and Microsoft etc. Pivot to 99% "rest of the world" and switch to my other point entirely for the US. There's much more need, reason and room for Mozilla to grow internationally.<p>- forget about ad spending, whether Google or TV, it just doesn't suit Mozilla's image, mission, product, nor customers. What we want is to attract the core deciders, from a grassroot kinda move, which spreads to peers, circles, and grows up, towards the corporate. What we want is the 'elite' or 'nerdy' segment even if we'll never call it that. The 1% that make a community thrive because they're so quintessential to tech in general, locally in their projects / cities / worlds. The few that are blessed with speech and some social presence, aura, authority. The ones others follow and listen to for 'tech stuff'.<p>So move worldwide now, and spend almost exclusively on these people. Influencers, media, awareness, image, mission — maybe even some communities living on forums could become advocates. Coordinate locally through bigger advocates to form an army of legions.<p>Maybe find a big thing, like "we'll be in space for humans day 1 to assist expansion" — moon, mars, satellites, whatever rocks the boat for the next decade (think really big, above yearly trends, give a face to a "superior" company). (I'm a space geek, perhaps this is just my taste)<p>Working with people directly, podcasters and youtubers gitlabers and whatnot, hordes of them, is a more tedious, longer approach, but as well a more long-term and much more engaging way to reach people. The money paid in sponsorship goes directly to 'building the world' (these people are evangelizers of principles and values, they're teachers, they're coaches, they play a valuable role in society), not some indirect major ad platform engrossing. It fuels communities that become grateful, with good reason, for marketing money. It becomes "clean" money by virtue of being used for something good.<p>- Don't dictate the message, let your 'influencers' feedback your way to browser supremacy, publicly so; make it a topic not a mandate — this is not just a 'strategy', it's a "<i>why</i>" materialized, a life path, a superior way to accomplish the mission. It's immortality through the software we give now and leave after us. Pivot to meet that, to meet your dearest users needs and wants. That's how you beat the faceless Google Chrome, imho. By giving the browser back to the people, by being a positive company not in some abstract "PR-humanitarian" way (although that's good!) but in a more direct-to-user way. By serving the worthy movements and people you find in this world. Grassroots seeding. Think: <i>for a browser company, connecting people and stuff is pretty much what we do. Let's show the world how much good we can do when there's a whole company behind that!</i><p>It'll take 10 years. There's no "too late" — until someone else does it, but that's also considered a win for Mozilla in that regard. By 2030, it can be done. And by virtue of being a dominant OSS, it has a staying power far greater than its rivals.<p>It's possible, Mozilla. This is just one rough draft, maybe not the one, but just to say: reinvent that sh--.