drolnitzky's blog

We recently launched a couple of online banners with, what we feel, are strong differentiated messages from our competition -- "security" and "customization".  We've been testing these banners out in the wild to see how users respond (in the form of click and ultimately Firefox downloads) for a few weeks now and plan to continue the test through the end of this month.  You can read the full details of the campaign here.

I've posted the files that we used for this program at the url below.  Please feel free to take these files and post them on your website or blog, or take it a step further and generate your own Firefox animated banner.   We'll continue to post the source files as we try out different messages and mediums in the future.  This idea (and we think it's a great one) came from a comment by Percy on this post about the program.

Download the flash files here:

This work by Mozilla is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Check out this cool new laptop that was laser etched!   As part of the Firefox Companion for eBay launch this summer, Mozilla and eBay held a charity auction on eBay for a Macbook that was laser etched with the Firefox and eBay logos. Our friends at Squid Labs hooked us up with an awesome laser etching machine made by the folks at Versa Laser (thanks guys!).

100% of the proceeds went to Computer Aid, a non profit that provides professionally refurbished computers for education, health, and non profit organizations in developing countries worldwide.

If you haven't yet checked out the Firefox Companion for eBay, be sure to check it out, currently supported for eBay-UK, eBay-Germany, and eBay France, with more countries coming soon.
 

The Mozilla store relaunched today with a new look and some great new Mozilla gear! 

Some of the highlights include:

• 12 brand new products, including seven cool new t-shirt designs, new stickers, and some gear featuring Kit
• A new store blog that has extra information about the items carried in the store, including snippets of inspiration about the new t-shirt designers.
• New comment features that let you share your thoughts and ideas about new and existing items.  Your feedback will help us continue to improve the store.  Please comment and let us know what you think!
• A new up-to-date design and navigation that makes browsing easier
• A Community Spotlight Program, which will feature tales from people in the community about their experiences using and wearing Mozilla gear.  If you've got a story to share, please let us know!
  
• Plus, as a special thanks for being a Firefox fan, get 10% off your next order until October 15th by using the coupon code "MOZILLASTYLE".  And, as an extra bonus, all orders over $10 will include a free Japanese-style sticker sheet full of Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird stickers.

Remember that all purchases made at the Mozilla store support the Mozilla foundation.  Check out the new store and start shopping!

Legal stuff we have to add about the coupon:
Discount can be used one time only.  Discount cannot be applied to previously purchased merchandise or combined with any other offer.  Discount does not apply to shipping and handling or taxes.  Discount has no cash value and cannot be sold, transferred or reproduced.  To receive discount, enter code "MOZILLASTYLE" during checkout at store.mozilla.org.  Good only in U.S.  Expires 10/15/07.  Void where prohibited.

One of the challenges to Firefox marketing is to improve our active user retention -- people that download Firefox, try it out, and end up using it regularly. As part of the Firefox retention brand campaign (one component of the Firefox retention plan), we are going to be shooting a short video this coming Monday in San Francisco. It's a viral video with a "We are the World" style benefit message that we hope will ring-true to anyone who uses Firefox. The goal of the video is to fire-up existing users and infuse even more pride into those that are already spreading firefox around the world (and of course, maybe convince some new users to give us a try as well).

If you are in the area we'd love to have you join us, whether you are a community member or just a big fan of Firefox and Mozilla. We want this to have a grass-roots feel and your participation will help make this video a success (and it should be fun as well). Be sure to wear your Firefox gear. Time and location TBD.  In the meantime, if you are interested, you can email me: david [at] mozilla [dot] [com].

(for updated details, visit www.giantspatula.com)

In order to increase our rates of Firefox adoption through search (specifically paid search advertising), we are going to be testing out a set of custom landing pages.  Each page targets mainstream users and in a very direct approach, encourages users to make the switch to Firefox.  In the past, we've sent everyone that has found us through paid search ads (those that accompany search results) to the standard Firefox download page.  Creating custom landing pages for certain search terms will make a user's search contextually relevant, which we hope will mean that they try out Firefox.

Here are three initial ideas of what this could look like.  The first is a "Why Firefox?" page which briefly details the benefits of switching.  The second reinforces the fact that Firefox works on Vista (the next version of this page will add step-by-step instructions on how to make it your default browser). And the third is a direct comparison of Firefox vs. IE, feature by feature.  Certain, select search terms will trigger each of these pages to appear when a user clicks on a paid search engine listing.

What do you think of this approach?  Is it too aggressive?  Is it not aggressive enough?  What would you do differently?

We have a couple of new marketing initiatives that are underway that I wanted to share.  As a community, we've always tried new things to see what works.  Special thanks to everyone who has joined in and helped get these campaigns (like Firefox Flicks to TV) off the ground!  

Many of you may have seen Firefox banner ads on a number of popular Websites.  In case you haven't, I've posted some of the banner ads here, in storyboard form (they are normally animated).  Feel free to use them on your own sites to help spread Firefox.

This is the first time we've reached out to a broader audience with this type of online advertising.  Some of the sites include CNET, MySpace, Salon, PriceGrabber, and many others.  Besides testing the effectiveness of online advertising as another way to get the word out about Firefox, one of our major goals was to focus on how Firefox can help fit in with a user's lifestyle.   These lifestyle banners focus on three groups -- young adults in high school/college, young professionals, families, and a more general message promoting add-ons -- and each matched to a Website audience.

In addition, as was mentioned in a previous SFX post, we recently launched a photo add-on with Kodak.  Kodak remains one of the largest photo sharing sites on the Web and has a very mainstream audience.  If you haven't tried it out, please do so and let us know what you think.  We're running some additional co-branded banner ads on a number of sites where there is a high proportion of photo enthusiasts with an intersection of lifestage events that are associated with photography -- including wedding and baby Websites.  I've posted some examples here.

There are a ton of exciting projects in the works for this year.  Looking to get involved?  Post your thoughts to the forums or to your SFX blog.  With the relaunch of spreadfirefox.com coming soon, there will be even more resources for all of us to dramatically scale the Web's first and large open source marketing project.  2007 is shaping up to be an exciting year to Spread Firefox.

Firefox Flicks is finally on TV! Thanks to you, our community, for being instrumental in bringing the Firefox message to the airwaves! Over the next six weeks, four Flicks will reach millions of people in Boston and San Francisco.

During this initial run, Billy's Browser, Daredevil, This is Hot, and Web for All are the featured Flicks.  You will be able to download the full as-seen-on-TV version very soon from the Flicks website.

A partial schedule has been posted for the Boston area through Wednesday this week which shows date, time, and cable channel. Pick out a time, make yourself some popcorn, and enjoy the view. San Francisco will be posted shortly, and we'll continue to post updates with the complete schedule over the next few days.

To stay up to date, keep an eye on the Firefox Flicks Backstage blog, conveniently linked up at the top right of Spread Firefox.