Ron Lindeboom
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COW Coins
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[Mark Suszko] “Ron, to follow up on your car analogies, if Chevy suddenly decided to not have a presence in the Detroit Auto Show, but said: “We’re not interested in the auto show, but we’ll have a presence in town”, what would you rate their stock at afterwards?”
Personally? I could care less if they went or not. I think most buyers think exactly the same. Few people attend these “events” in comparison to those that don’t. I never have and I am a Chevy guy born and raised, having had them since high school. Though I now drive something else, but I loved my 2000 Impala — it got great mileage on the road and never cost us a dime in maintenance, not one. (Other than oil changes, air filters, etc.)
But while I drove that car, some of my friends were driving Mercedes and paying nearly three-times the money and footing one of the highest cost-per-mile maintenance schedules in the automotive world. They loved them. Why? Don’t ask me, I am not of that market.
My point is that those who buy the massive suites and foot the bill for multi-million dollar facilities nearly always go Avid. It costs more and the maintenance costs make them such that they should ship as standard equipment with all Mercedes sold.
But their market loves ’em — well, loves to hate them. It’s like one of those twisted marriages you see wherein the couple can’t stand each other but can’t stand to be without each other. Don’t ask me how they do it, I’m with Kathlyn and so life is good.
;o)
[Mark Suszko] “Non-Avid people who might have been interested in a purchase are now going to sit on their hands and see what happens instead of pulling the trigger on a purchase, and Avid better hope those folks don’t see another product they like in the mean time. There are plenty.”
That’s the very point, Mark: those who can be satisfied with something that they could buy breezing past a tradeshow booth for a few minutes and buy it almost as an impulse item, are likely not Avid prospects anyway.
You are right, there are indeed plenty of options just as there are plenty of different kinds of cars. Again, “cheap and gets you to where you’re going” isn’t always what moves the needle for some buyers, buyers often willing to pay two- to three-times what others do just to “get there.”
It’s that human nature thingie, again.
[Mark Suszko] “What Avid has now is a panic, like a run on the bank. How is that good?”
This presumes that your thoughts and feelings are the thoughts and feelings of all — or even the majority of Avid users.
Kathlyn and I learned long ago that happy customers rarely post. Almost never. But anger someone or give someone something to complain about and they are all over the place in droves.
It’s that human nature thingie, once more. (But hey, it’s consistent.)
I have talked with quite a number of people since I wrote what I wrote. The verdict? Most of those looking at Avid think the sky is falling for Avid. But among those who make their living with Avid, most could care less and know where to find Avid when they want them.
Oddly, I have even had some of them tell me that, “Ron, I have half my company running on old AVR 77 machines and I still make a lot of money with them. Even if Avid were to go away, I’ll make money with the newer machines long after they are paid for. I don’t care…”
It seems to be a far bigger deal to those who don’t use Avids, than to those that do use them.
I hate to say it, but I think it’s that human nature thingie — yet again.
But I have one question for you, Mark: Do you honestly believe that Avid could make such a major and fundamental shift without running it before the Board of Directors first? If they didn’t get their approval, I would guarantee you that heads would and will roll again.
[Mark Suszko] “If Hollywood made 400 films this year, that’s about ten miuntes worth of one day’s worth of uploads to YouTube. I didn’t say anything about quality, just numbers.”
Yes, and most of it not worth watching — and so no one does watch most of it. One of my favorite videos has been watched a mere 300 times or so in three years. Hardly anything to spark a Neilsens parade. Most of the videos on YouTube fall into that category.
To finish with the car analogy: YouTube is like the Yugo. Yes, it burned gas and the tires turned but it appealed to few people but those who couldn’t afford anything else.
YouTube is a great thing and I love it. But it is hardly the market that Avid focuses on.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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[walter biscardi] “As I noted earlier, CNN Atlanta is switching over to Final Cut Pro and I believe the switch is almost complete. Well over 200 workstations. That is the flagship facility for CNN. New York and D.C. will most certainly follow, but they don’t have as many suites as Atlanta.
Turner Studios in Atlanta is also investing heavily in Final Cut Pro as well.
So it’s not just us smaller shops that are investing in Final Cut Pro to save money.”
As I said, Walter, there were over 400 major movies released last year from the Hollywierd machine. A couple were edited on Final Cut. The rest? Avid.
Ditto for the major networks that use a few of the other systems but for the vast lion’s share? Ditto. Avid.
I couldn’t agree with you more about the talent part, Walter. That is what really moves the needle on the buyer/watcher side and over the years when I work with companies, I have almost never had anyone ask what I use to do what I do.
I think far too many producer/editor/animators do themselves a great disservice by making themselves identified first by their tools and second, by what they do.
By the way, congratulations on your new Master Series DVD for Apple Color, it looks like you have a hit on your hands, Wally.
:o)
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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[David Roth Weiss] “The company is now going to be forced to contend against the perception or “feeling” that they are failing, and whether thats true or not, it may not matter. Once the spector of failure is raised, it can be like fighting with shadows–often the more a company ratchets up its public relations machine to assure people the company isn’t failing, the greater the perception that they really are.”
For years, I have said many, many times that “In a marketing war, perception is everything.”
And it is.
Perceptions will either make or break you and I agree that Avid’s move is likely to have repercussions that they may live to regret.
Time will tell.
But Graham Sharp has fought and won against that perception in Europe for years, eschewing IBC and taking his show on the road for great profitability and market success.
But as many European companies can attest to, them damned Yankees think and act funny.
As I heard in one of my sci-fi shows the other night: the future is not set in stone.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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[Proper Modulation] “Say what you will about young editors, roll your eyes at the perceived lack of “pro” work FCP can handle or keep convincing yourself that the industry will stay the way it is forever, but fact is, the young guys crowding around FCP’s booth last year are THE FUTURE and arguably the PRESENT.”
The one thing I do NOT think and is quite clear in many of the things that I have said, is that this market will stay the same.
This market turns so fast that the only thing that you can count on is that change will happen — and that, usually sooner than later.
[Proper Modulation] “Avid is taking YET ANOTHER step to remove themselves from the future and dig themselves deeper into the ESTABLISHED market that thinks Avid can do know wrong and would never fathom FCP as an alternate. That crowd is going the way of the dinosaur whether we like it or not.”
Apple itself has felt the sting of this blade, having once had the lion’s share of the market long ago. I can also remember when Apple in the days of the Mosaic browser accounted for the brunt of web traffic and even had a far larger share of the web server market than Microsoft.
But as you say above, things chance.
Avid is not oblivious to change and they are merely assessing the kinds of moves that return the highest return for them. NAB can be served by having some hospitality suites, which they will have.
But while Toyotas and Hondas are clearly all over the roads, as a business model, Mercedes and Lexus aren’t half bad either.
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Ron Lindeboom
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[Craig Seeman] “Avid’s strategy will keep them afloat as they make the BIG sales to their targeted market but I’m not sure that’s a great long term strategy.”
Mercedes Benz and Lexus would argue that.
You do not need to have all the mass market to be successful, you need to play your niche well.
Last year, about 400 major motion pictures were released and only a couple or so were edited in Final Cut.
Most all of the major networks around the world use Avid. A few use something else, whether it be Final Cut, Edius, Liquid (yes, there are some), etc. But most of the majors use Avid.
So like a Chevy, Final Cut makes the rounds of the mass market but you see far fewer Mercedes and Lexus’s on the road. Yet all three companies have successful business models and any one of the cars will get you from Point A to Point B.
Avid is looking at itself and seeing what it does well and doesn’t do well.
Its story does not play well on the show floor of NAB and throwing $2 million at it does not make great sense when NAB is clearly becoming a show for independent operators, whose numbers now make up a large part of the audience — especially in the South Hall.
I think that Avid stands every bit as good a chance of succeeding as they do of failing in this endeavor. If they play their hand well, they will continue to serve a client base that has come to count on them. If they don’t play it well, they will languish into obscurity as a footnote in the history of media production. The ball is in their court and I, like many, will look forward to seeing just how well they play their game.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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Nice post, Craig.
I agree that the model of the highly focused, efficient and local show with hands-on tactile presentation is one of the ways that the paradigm is being shifted.
Apple does this kind of thing well at NAB, precisely because their user base is already familiar with the user experience and interface principles. It is easy to present basics. But as the new Final Cut 6 Bugs article in the COW Library attests, you won’t catch all the snafus and gotchas — nor discern all the intricacies of a highly complex media managed, file shared, metasync’d system like a high-end Avid — on a show floor.
It’s still a crap shoot.
Apple showed Logic this way at NAB a couple shows or so ago. But Logic is tougher to communicate than the wow and razzle dazzle of showing off a new Motion or Color. Most of the people that came to experience Logic just sat there with their eyes glazed. So, this year at NAB, no Logic.
But targeted at the right market, in the right setting, a tool like Logic is going to be a real success.
In its complexity and left-brained multi-faceted dryness of features that have to be grasped and understood, Avid finds itself with a “I’m here for my first look” presentation hurdle much like Logic. It’s a tougher “show” than say FC Studio, wherein Apple races through features and presents the “mountain-tops.” But an Avid requires more the kind of presentation that you are talking about, as much of what makes an Avid an Avid is found in the nuance and refinement.
I have always said that an artist understands that it takes 10% of the time to do the first 90% of the job, and 90% of the time to get the last 10% of the refinement done. Refinement takes time and while some argue that Avid needs a radical update, their core market argues that the refinement of stability is worth the premium and they are not arguing for a radical update that throws out the interface in the way that I have to relearn Photoshop everytime a new version comes out — ggrrrr.
Avid’s greatest success has been that their market expects something more than a two-page bug list when they buy an upgrade or a system.
Walter does great work but as a smaller shop, he has different needs and requirements than someone like CBS New York or PBS’s flagship WGBH.
And as Randall Raymond (Raymond Motion Pictures) stated, as long as Avid can get their people out there meeting and interacting with their customers, they stand a great chance of being successful.
But only time will tell how the story plays out.
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Ron Lindeboom
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I both agree some and disagree some with my venerable and esteemed friend, Walter.
I agree that Avid’s reputation as a stodgy and smug company with an attitude has hurt it. I can’t count the number of times that I have called people at Avid only to realize that Jimmy Buffett was right when he wrote the song, “If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.”
But just as Autodesk, Adobe and others have been through major restructurings, so has Avid and it was one that used a fairly wide and large broom. ;o)
When we called Avid for an interview with Graham Sharp yesterday, we had it in minutes. That’s never happened before.
But I disagree when simplifying purchases down to making up one’s mind on what can be gleaned from a showfloor.
Why?
I have been to many deep all day product roadshows, some that have lasted for two to four days. With a tool like an Avid, I have probably five or six days of intense all-day seminars digging into the features and I am far from knowledgeable about all that’s there. I doubt that I have covered a third of what makes an Avid, an Avid.
But what I learned on a showfloor sitting in my seat for 10 to 20 minutes? Not much.
Apple plays well at NAB. Adobe’s presentation from all I heard, was a far second to Apple’s “wow, the crowd” approach. Avid? Well, let’s be nice and ask did they even have a big press event last year?
😉
Regardless of the outcome of Avid’s decision, companies like Sony have left Comdex, a show that was one of the pivotal shows for them. In doing so, they set the stage for many others to follow their lead.
The tradeshow industry is in a world of hurt, far more than Avid.
Already gone are a long list of shows like Showbiz Expo (that had been a Hollywood cornerstone for years and years), gone also are the NY DV Show and LA DV Show, Videomaker gave up their show a few years back, the DVD Tech Expo is gone, DV Expo is a 20% to 25% of what it once was at its peak, Siggraph continues to get smaller and smaller each year, NAB is shrinking in both size and importance, and the list could go on and on…
Whether Avid has made a brilliant move or has just shot itself in the head, remains to be seen. But the fact remains that they have $2 million in a war chest to play the kinds of strategies that Graham Sharp played in Europe to remarkable success and profit — all while avoiding IBC.
Tradeshows are important but they are not indespensible — nor in this day of the internet are they indestructible.
Just watching the paradigms shift again.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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Oliver,
Smaller shops are not the target market of Avid. They likely pass you by for the same reason that they pass me by. We are just too small here to truly appreciate the kind of infrastructure that Avid has developed to meet the needs of their core market, which is made up of customers that want to manage huge amounts of data from many, many projects, all accessible and managed within a construct that disallows one person access to a file for one reason, while allowing another access — all the while giving full management access to those who need to oversee the project.
That is not a story that communicates well on a noisy showfloor in a matter of minutes.
I agree that not being on the showfloor sends a certain message and it is one that will likely hurt Avid — some.
But if Graham is half as good a marketer as I think he is, I think that the company will likely surprise some (oh, while likely rankling and angering others).
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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[Ben Holmes] “I know many companies who do a great deal of business at NAB, millions of dollars every year.”
I just spoke with one of my friends yesterday who is in this class. He does millions of dollars a year in sales at NAB, when tracking the leads out over the next few months of follow-up.
That’s a good thing.
Especially for him, he says. ;o)
But he was quite blunt with me when I reminded him that millions in sales is not millions in profit.
That’s when he admitted to me, that he’s not sure that he’d be able to afford it were he not being subsidized by the many manufacturers whose products he represents. He told me how he splits his cost across a bunch of co-op ad programs and that is what makes it palpable.
My point with the article is that Avid is arguably one of the deepest — if not the deepest — nonlinear editing and content production and management technologies on the planet. You don’t “pitch” it against FCP in 10 to 20 minutes on a loud show floor — if you make a decision on your tools that way, there is no guarantee that you got it right.
What some people are missing in this is that Avid stayed away from IBC for years and yet Graham Sharp, the guy who is now leading Avid Video, turned in some of the highest numbers in Avid when he headed the European region.
I think that Avid has merely made a decision that basically comes down to this: They can take $2 million and apply it to the kinds of strategies that Graham used in Europe; strategies that involve taking Avid directly to those whose demographic is likely to appreciate the depth and breadth of the kind of media management and file sharing prowess that is at the heart of what Avid does. That kind of story doesn’t play well on the battlefloor of NAB. But it does play well when presented to the engineers and key personnel at major broadcasters, film studios and others that make up the vast majority of Avid’s customer base.
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Ron Lindeboom
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I can sympathize with companies that feel strapped by expos.
Back when we did our own expo, Creative COW West in 2003, we had over 40 companies as I recall on our expo floor. We had the usual Platinum, Gold and Silver sponsors. We had booths and brought a couple of thousand people to the Westin Hotel’s conference and expo center in Los Angeles.
It was fun but it was VERY expensive. Fortunately, we didn’t lose money or we’d have been out of business, quick.
But it taught me the other side of conferences and expos and why they are so expensive.
It also taught me that I am not sure that I’d really ever want to do it again.
I can understand why NAB wants every nickel on the table but I can also understand why companies like Avid are getting sick of the drill — and drill is a pretty accurate description.
Some people say that Avid is bowing out because they are in trouble. This kind of short-sighted argument really bores me and bore me quick.
Why?
These people ignore the fact that in the restructuring of Avid that recently happened, they brought in the man who ran their most successful video division, Graham Sharp of Avid Europe (a man with a strong record of doing things against the grain and having it work profitably, very profitably). Graham has always played his gut instincts and he has proven his instincts to be quite accute.
Graham was the head of Avid’s European offices and he spent years ignoring IBC. Instead, he took the money and got toe-to-toe with those who wanted to know more about Avid and who wanted to get real answers from Avid — not the kind that come on a 1-800- line where some know-nothing tells you “Yeah, our system does that.” Or the kind of answers you get from a 10 minute demo on the battlefloor of NAB. Graham is an expert guerrilla marketer with the track record to prove it.
As I said, he also has a long history of hating tradeshows. He’s a strong advocate of roadshows and targeted mini-conferences that take Avid’s message directly to the best prospects — and he knows how to find him.
Huge tradeshows are dying. Just look at demise of Showbiz Expo, the NY DV Show, the LA DV Show and others that are now dead and gone. Even DV Expo, Siggraph, NAB and others continue to spiral downward — some with actual attendee number losses and fewer and fewer supporting vendors, etc. Other shows lose by the quality of the attendees dropping to the point where many companies that I talk to are saying that they get questions today that almost make them want to break out laughing — or crying, and just go home.
Me, I will stand by my words and say that I believe that over the next few years, these shows will become less and less important and their attendees and exhibitors will dwindle.
Avid is not the first and they surely won’t be the last. But, to date, they are indeed the biggest fish that has leaped from the pond and strode off looking for their own better way to market.
Me, I wish them luck and think that the day has come for companies to recognize the fact that the market has changed — REALLY changed.
It isn’t 1980 anymore. Business models change…
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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