[Ron Lindeboom]

[Randall Raymond] “What does the internet offer? A click-through to a photo? Oh, what an honor! Ron, you cannot offer that here, no matter how successful the Cow gets.”

Wow, all you get from the net is a click-through to a photo. Then you clearly don’t have the eyes to see or the ears to hear the truly remarkable minds around here that give so much of their time freely helping sort out issues and problems that Apple tech support — and Adobe and Sony’s, as well — can’t sort out many times.

If that’s all you can see just why do you bother to come here anyway, Randall???

In most cases that I have seen, trophies age and become pretty meaningless but the great people go on and on. I have been doing this over 12 years now and many of the leaders on this forum I have known and interacted with and have come to know very well over the years. You don’t seem to get that but that’s okay, you clearly have little real comprehension of what this community really is and has done for many people.

Sorry that you really can’t seem to grasp that.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Christopher Wright] “I don’t know why you keep referring to just FCP in your posts on NAB as well. Using Tim’s argument, they are spending a LOT of YOUR dollars advertising I-junk that could be used better for R&D and “one on ones.” NAB isn’t just about one software app!”

I am speaking in the context of NAB, not Macworld expo. NAB, for Apple, is about MOSTLY Final Cut. That is why I address it from that point of view.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point but I thought that that was what we were discussing, NAB and Apple. In that context, Final Cut seems far more appropriate than iPods, Garageband and iLife software.

By saving $15 million from NAB, that throws a lot more money (and time) back into the kitty that can be used for FCP and the high end suite of tools.

Lastly, the iJunk (as you call it) is quite profitable and is taking absolutely nothing away from the Final Cut and related apps. They have different engineers, different budgets and different marketing teams even. One is courting a wide reaching consumer base and the money spent there wins new and mostly previous PC customers. The other, needs little marketing as the users themselves market it in a much more focused environment. In this environment the reputation alone of the Final Cut Studio has helped Apple market it without the need for things like NAB, so says Apple and they are the ones who will write the check — not you or me.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

You are so smart David that you named your dog Augie Doggie. That makes you freakin’ brilliant in my book.

Now if you could get another dog and name it Clutch Cargo — or better still, get two dogs and name them Clutch Cargo and his pal Paddlefoot — you could attain genius status (or maybe even sainthood!).

Ever a lover of classic Hanna Barbera cartoons and the one rotating backing plate they all shared,

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Tim Kolb] “I think it might be best if you guys back this down a touch…this statement was frankly, absurd.”

Tim was speaking for Tim in his own opinion, me I happen not to agree with him on this one.

My point is that people say that NAB is critical to users getting the best feedback and experience and so on and so forth. That too is absurd.

There are MANY TIMES the number of people that own, use and are VERY good with these tools that have never been to NAB.

My point is that the market is changing and these companies are pulling because NAB just keeps raising the rates through the ceiling and they themselves are killing their own goose that has laid them golden eggs.

As I said earlier, when NAB does this and their own partnering companies keep raising their rates (as in the TV Technology printed Daily Show magazine whose rates nearly doubled for this year — even though without Apple and Avid the show is almost guaranteed to have fewer, not more, attendees) this too is absurd.

But that’s just my opinion.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Christopher Wright] “Following your logic, Apple is wasting all its money on all the trade mags advertising as well.”

Christopher,

No they are not. (Bet you knew I’d say that — but I bet you didn’t know why I’d say that…)

There has been NO print advertising from Apple for over three years now, when it comes to Final Cut Studio. The last Apple print ad for Final Cut was long before Studio came out.

They advertise the consumer stuff but feel NO NEED to advertise the pro tools. (With the exception of a few small ads for Logic and Aperture. Newer products that have yet to find their markets.)

They learned that, for them, they didn’t change their sales figures 10% by spending all that money on advertising Final Cut or the other Studio tools. So they stopped. Long ago.

Things change.

There was a time they needed to advertise. That changed. They sell the same amount with or without it as they have attained their own brand “critical mass” and in doing so, they are FAR MORE in control of their destiny than arguably any other tech company.

Lastly, Christopher, if Kathlyn adding a post to inform users of a new article (and to which a reader responds and starts another thread going) offends you, then please don’t open them and read them. The solution is quite simple.

Personally, some of the smartest people I know in this industry haven’t been to a tradeshow in years. It is NOT a one-size-fits-all world.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Randall Raymond] “Decisions influenced by dealers and their salesmen who worked the shows of their manufacturers. It’s a much bigger dynamic than you are painting.”

When I spent $75,000 for my first Media 100 back in 1994, I had never been to NAB nor had the salesperson I worked with at the dealer in San Francisco.

I have bought many times the number of things over the years from dealers than I have from NAB. The truth is, I hate carrying around anything on the floor and would much rather buy outside NAB.

There is no one-size-fits-all except in a world where the majority of people dress funny.

I have no doubt that many people like NAB. I love going to see my friends but little else really excites me as I know that all I have to do is pick up the phone and call one of my friends (if I can’t find the answer online), and I can find the answer I need.

I put WAY more credence on the value of user feedback and commentary than I do on a salesperson. (Even though I know many good ones and work with a number directly on my own purchases.) But when it comes to knowledge, I don’t know any salesperson that can rival the aggregate knowledge of a huge body of users kicking on a tool from a wide variety of usages and focus.

Last I looked, NAB wasn’t hiring genies in the bottle and while I have HUGE respect for platform artists like Tim Kolb (who has worked at NAB for years with companies like Adobe and Canopus and others), I think that even Tim Kolb would admit that there’s something to be said for an aggregate body of knowledge like that found at the COW. Just as there is indeed value to be had in talking face to face with someone like Tim at NAB. It’s just that it’s gotten increasingly hard to justify the escalating expenses that are associated with presenting at their show.

The real issue is that NAB just keeps raising the rates and they are the ones who themselves are killing their very own goose that lays the golden eggs.

I just got a PDF sent to me about a week ago to renew our contract from last year in which we bought a full page ad in the NAB Show Daily magazine. It was $3,800 last year and the price was around $7200 for the same ad this year. Ridiculous, I told them. “Are you smoking crack?” was actually closer to what I said.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Chris Lupetti] “This Creative Cow Podcast is a masterpiece! It answers so many questions on the business of new media and how to handle non creative clients. If I had had this knowledge when I started out I would have saved myself a lot of hassle dealing with non-creative types.”

Thanks from all of us, and someday we’ll even get around to Episode Two: The Revenge of the Last One Standing. (Or something like that. But we’ll all have to put on our Buck Rogers cool helmets to do that episode, which is why it’s been delayed.)

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Randall Raymond] “In the end, I am the one spending the money as a new customer.”

Wow, I had no idea that you were going to say that.

:o)

But you are in fact NOT the one spending a dime for any of it, as you aren’t using Final Cut last I looked. You also do not use Macs from reading your posts around the COW. So I highly doubt that Apple press events and Apple user gatherings have much genuine interest for you.

And arguing that you are a prospect that Apple is losing access to is stretching reality a bit much, as you come here everyday and I have little doubt that you can learn far more here about Final Cut (were you really interested), than you could at one of Apple’s highly scripted and rehearsed demos at NAB.

Considering that Apple tech support itself refers users with difficult issues that they can’t solve, here to the COW in hopes of getting an answer, I have to smile that NAB is so “indespensible.”

As I said in my article, most of the dealers I talk to — and I talk to many all the time — tell me that they go to NAB because they use co-op advertising money (a rebate sum based on a percentage of the product bought by the dealer) to attend and so if they carry enough products, the money isn’t coming out of their pocket.

But these same dealers tell me that if it all came out of their pocket, they couldn’t afford to be there.

$15 million is a lot of money and would mean that Apple would have to do a LOT of new business to justify that kind of expense.

Apple has little left to prove to anyone with Final Cut Studio. You are either going to buy it or you aren’t — and likely most of those attending already own it. (It isn’t “prospects” that were the ones running down the aisles at show open last year, it was the true believers. And they’d buy the Next Big Thing whether or not Apple was at NAB.)

As I said, having $15 million slammed against a product to have to recoup could mean radical changes in the way that a product grows and is supported — especially when the massive sales growth curve starts to fall off.

Business is business. Fan clubs are fan clubs. There is a time when the two shall meet. Other times, they no longer share goals and objectives that are as mutually synergistic.

But as I said elsewhere, Avid and Apple may be the first two companies to abandon this highly overpriced and overrated shindig, but they surely will not be the last. Mark my words, in a few years NAB will be back to its single building size and the halcyon days of the multimedia revolution will be a chapter from its past.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

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[Ron Lindeboom]

I couldn’t agree more, Raymond. And if you are willing to pay a few hundred thousand each for influencing prospects this way, have at it.

I just found out today that Apple’s direct costs for attending NAB is over $15 million. I know that small companies I know are close to a half million per, and so the cost per new sale — let’s be real, most old customers will keep buying if you do not betray their trust — and so the cost PER NEW SALE is the yardstick that many of these companies are now looking at.

You are free to disagree but you are not the one spending the money. And if you use Final Cut and are willing to have $15 million put against it just so you can feel good for a bit, then you are basing your decisions on unsound business opinions, not principles.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
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Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

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[Ron Lindeboom]

I would use the search engine in the Business & Marketing forum here at the COW. It is one of the real treasures here at the COW and there have been many discussions of this nature there and so a search on the words “Rates” and “Pricing” will give you plenty to consider.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronlindeboom
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine
Join the COW’s LinkedIn Group

Now in the COW Magazine: Commercials. A look at the history, strategy, techniques and production workflows of successful commercials. All brought to you by some of the COW’s brightest members. Accept no substitutes!

Would you like to be in Creative COW Magazine with your story or contribution? Contact me.

Do you have your complimentary subscription to Creative COW Magazine yet?