Marketing by criticism is not cool
Published by on March 3rd, 2010 2 Comments »
MacHeist is here again with a bundled selection of OSX applications for a daft price. Rarely do I find a bundle that is not worth the price. But this time I have been put off by one item in particular.
I am always on the lookout for new tools to add to the professional arsenal. But to push those I use daily off their trusted pedestals takes some effort.
The opening salvo of a sales pitch for a new FTP application that is part of the current MacHeist bundle offer, begins by criticising users for continuing with a tried, tested, trusted product that I have used for many years:
Are you still using Transmit, an app that dates all the way back to MacOS 8? Well, if so, then it’s time to make room for the new kid in town… Flow
That’s right, they open their sales pitch in that way, and continue with snipes at Transmit with reference to Transmit’s very basic text editor:
And we’re not talking about a gimped editor…
Panic’s Transmit is one of those apps that I never hesitate to upgrade. Along with hardened, mature tools like BBEDit, they have remained at the core of my day to day development work (BBEdit is even set to auto boot when my Mac starts).
Am I behind the times in my choice of tool? When I find a new tool that stands the test against those I trust, I’ll make the switch. But strip away the bells and whistles of most new tools and I generally find poor substitutes for those that already enable me to do my job.
Of course, tool choice is a personal one and there are many who would never make the same choices as me. But to go so far as to be critical of a user’s choice is an immature, insecure and ignorant form of marketing. Not the kind of company to which I want to make a professional commitment.
2 Responses to “Marketing by criticism is not cool”
Leave a Reply
COMMENT APPROVAL POLICY: Please use a genuine name and email address for your comment. Please use your real name, not SEO keyword text. Please limit any outgoing links in your comment to a maximum of ONE, which should not be the same as you entered URL in the form. Please be considerate to other commenters. Please be relevant to the blog post and contribute to the discussion. Blatant link generation comments (we get a lot of those!) will be deleted. LICENSE By submitting a comment here you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Your comment may be edited or removed by a site admin if deemed necessary.
Totally agree with you, Neil. I’ve written my thoughts elsewhere – using *far* more words than you, editing isn’t my strong point
http://emmaandpete.com/pete/snarky-marketing-backfires-macheist-nanobundle2
[...] this rubbing them the wrong way as well, and I’ll let you check out their words on the matter here and [...]