BroadSign’s Doublespeak
Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
It seems that the folks at BroadSign are doing everything they possibly can to get their remaining customers to say favourable things about them.
We learnt that the press release ‘Neo Advertising Canada Reports Profitability‘ was actually a BroadSign inspired (and sent) press release so no surprises there then with the quote at the end…
“We are very pleased with the fact that the technology part is largely outsourced;it saves Neo Canada time and money, and we can dedicate the freed resources to running our media business/ BroadSign SaaS ensures close to 100% network uptime and provides us with all the workflow and accountability we need to work with our advertisers”.
Benjamin Mathieu, CEO of Neo Advertising Canada.
But of course we didn’t receive THAT press release because only hours before, we were electronically removed from BroadSign’s press distribution list (see here) – CHILDISH is the first thought that comes to mind but also foolhardy because as you know, we are perhaps the biggest proponent and supporter of everything that Neo do AND only too pleased to report on Neo Canada’s great work (AND make mention of BroadSign as well if it is truly a contributory factor to the success).
Sun Tzu (400 B.C.), author of On the Art of War said “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer”
It amazes us how many companies ignore this very simple piece of advice. Broadsign rather than focusing on journalists, web sites and portals that they have advertising / site sponsor relationships with should focus on those that don’t always necessarily agree with them.
Like all good business partners, Bob Martin, CEO at Levelvision recently also rose to BroadSign’s defence, commenting on our post ‘LevelVision Lets Students Walk All Over Them as the author (not me this time) had the gall (god forbid) to repeat oft heard rumours (elsewhere) in the industry and suggested that LevelVision “is hedging its bets and has started discussions with alternative solution providers in the event that BroadSign ends up in the deadpool”
BroadSign have been far from open this year (remember the purchase of Navori anyone) so is it any wonder that their customers are worried about the Petters funding drying up, the lack of the promised IPO and the recent layoffs?
If you were a BroadSign customer, in fact if you were a customer of almost any SaaS provider, you would be stupid not to have a backup plan (software in escrow perhaps) or your own way onto (effectively) your network should anything untoward happen.
BroadSign got rid of Eugene Cuyler, their sole European sales guy in early November (by the way only getting round to telling their customers in early December) and so now have no representation in either Europe or Asia!
Go figure what their strategy for 2009 is or if you believe any of their PR then listen to Brian Dusho telling you their plans for 2009 over on DigitalSignageToday
I doubt those plans include losing most of their big customers but we would bet you a lot of money that this is in fact what happens in the months ahead.
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