Towards the end of last year the Compuware Uniface team did something dynamic and ‘out there’. This is unusual enough in the IT world, but it’s particularly unexpected coming from a company that has always been as conservative as a chunky-knit cardigan when it comes to marketing.
In December, the Uniface team launched its “Badass Squares” viral marketing campaign: reworking the iconic ‘baddies walking out to jangly soundtrack’ scene from Quentin Tarantino’s film “Reservoir Dogs” with a cast of, er, Uniface developers (including customers as well as key developers of the product).
Why? Firstly to both promote its up and coming user conference (www.icu2010.com , 2 February 2010) and secondly to show a younger more switched-on generation of developers, that developing in Uniface could be just as cool and desirable.
Did it work? Well, it may not push all the right buttons, but it certainly got them recognised, and the company does, at least, deserve points for trying to do something different and noteworthy.
I for one have long criticised Compuware for being a vendor that has been well endowed with a strong portfolio of quality products, but has lacked the marketing flair and ingenuity to really reflect the strength of its value proposition.
Take the rebranding of Compuware 2.0 and the tag line “we make IT rock around the world” back in May 2008. That was considered “old and lagging” even as it was announced.
However, being a badass square developer is the Uniface team’s baby. Compuware Uniface, now running under its own steam as a separate business subsidiary to the parent company Compuware, is growing up fast and looking not to make the same mistakes as its middle-aged parent.
Okay so I personally would have liked to have watched something that had a better gender spread and, in keeping with my analyst profession, professed more of the business value statements. But that’s not to say that Uniface haven’t done their homework in choosing a viral marketing strategy that offers a more visual, universally understood format that is quirky, fun and different, and, as a result, is more likely to be passed on.
In other words, what it loses in detailed Uniface messaging, it gains in succinct visual representation. And as an exercise in generating noise and piquing people’s interest it certainly seems to be working. The company has reported almost 1,000 visits to www.badasssquares.com in less than a month, with hits from 32 countries.
More importantly, the badass squares campaign aims to drive interest in the Uniface development platform. The next release of the product is Uniface 9.4 with its focus on Rich Internet/Interactive Application, and Web 2.0 development is due for general commercial release at the end of March.
This is the release that will have the most appeal to a developer community that is attuned to delivering engagement- and experience-fuelled applications using the latest social computing and unified communication technology. The very audience, in other words, that the company is after.
The signs for Uniface 9.4 are very promising, with clients already winning and delivering RIA based work against the controlled release version.
I might also have argued for a campaign that reflects better “discipline” as a cool and desirable trait for truly skilled development. It might not be sexy, but the industry has stored up trouble for itself in the past – and continues to do so – by ignoring the need to be more controlled. The Uniface team are well aware of this and do appear to have the right supporting messages behind the scenes to back the benefits and discipline of the Uniface platform.
In short, as a “sit up and get noticed” ploy then this viral campaign gets the thumb ups. Compuware’s newest offspring is finally addressing a criticism that many of us in the industry have levelled at the parent company in a way that is more dynamic, tongue in cheek and a whole lot more modern than their roots and perceived company culture would have them traditionally do. As a campaign to spark interest and inquisitiveness from alternative quarters, such as the newer generation of developers more at home with richer visual experience and engagements and social computing interactions and networks, it potentially hits the mark, too. However, it will only ultimately be deemed a success if it can sustain the level of engagement and get onto the radar of those with the purchasing budgets. All this will depend on the company’s ability to reflect the wider needs of both the IT organisation and their business customers in Uniface’s value proposition.
Tags: badass squares, Compuware, icu2010, Uniface
