Jay's Blog Thoughts on Mozilla marketing, err…engagement.

Our Mozilla Campus Reps wrapped up the “On the Street” Interviews project in December and produced some very cool videos.  There were 12 submissions from our reps in the US and in India… and I hope that future projects like this will allow us to see more of the world as reps in other countries get involved.

I wanted to share all of the great videos with the Mozilla community…and congratulate Mauricio, Fazulul, and Galen on their videos, which were voted the “Top 3 Favorites”  by the Mozilla marketing team.

Here are the 2008 Campus Reps “On the Street” videos with some comments from our reps about their experience:

Mauricio Zepeda, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61TICB-YbPY

By knowing how much time of our life is spent online, the purpose of this video was to capture people’s feelings and preferences  regarding Internet Browsers. We received a lot of help from different people who supported Firefox and believed that making this video was a good cause. Among this people are the Camera Man and Editor, “Kleber Garcia”, who managed to borrow a professional camera from his job; The people behind ACM Florida Tech Chapter, who provided us with their time and support; And the Christian / Emo / Happy Hardcore artists from Solo, Norway “Shari Vari” who granted us permission for using their music.

Fazulul Rahman, Sri Sakthi College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9Dk-42V0e8

It was really an awesome experience hearing the exceptional usefulness of Firefox from the public.It made me to think that people are very much aware of the world’s most fastest,safe and useful browser “Mozilla Firefox”.  In this on the street experience, i met loads of people.  They find Firefox as their best companion when it comes to surfing or searching…while there are only few who have little knowledge of just loading web pages through firefox.  And there are even few who haven’t heard of Firefox and still stick on to the old default Windows browser “Internet Explorer”.  I took  this opportunity to teach and show them that there is Firefox for them to lead.  I also helped them come out of that little knowledge and made them use the world’s fastest browser “Mozilla Firefox”.  I helped installing them the recent firefox and showed them the difference in speed for loading webpages between Firefox and IE.  Also I explained them of the useful features like add-ons, private data clearing, player integration, download manager integration, popup blockers, etc…

Galen Weld, The Evergreen School, Shoreline (Seattle), WA

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7380881017562287512

I really enjoyed interviewing my teachers to create this video. For me, it was interesting to hear about all my teachers experiences with Firefox. I never really thought about their opinions on the subject. I was surprised to learn that a lot of my interviewees preferred Firefox over IE. I had always thought of my self as one of the lone Firefox users, trying heard to convert the others. Creating this video really helped me think about the fact that some of my teachers really care about open source software. Also, it was a great opportunity to have a much needed laugh.

Vishal Jalan, Indian Institute of Management, Indore, India

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2LsXOa3HGQ

The interview were mostly conducted amongst MBA students who are normally not that “Tech” savvy. Quite a bunch of them still use internet explorer.
It was a wonderful experience talking to people about firefox and mozilla in general. I got to meet some die hard firefox fans to some who had absolutely no idea what mozilla was. It was amazing to see some of them belonging to the same campus but such a vast difference in the awareness about mozilla. One thing which was common across people was that all of them who used Firefox were very proud of the fact.

Abhishek Suresh & Sheriff Mirza, Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Tamil Nadu, India

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8pKFblbDoo

We visited a couple of places, and it was an amazing experience speaking to many people. It was embarrassing and funny in the beginning, eventually we got a hang of it and it was fun indeed. We made a compilation of the funniest and best interviews which would of course make the video a bit interesting to watch.

From our Statistics, this is what we obtained:
Google Chrome – 20 Users
Mozilla Firefox – 16 Users
Safari – 15 Users
Opera – 15 Users
Internet Explorer – 8 Users
Maxthon – 1 User
Ares? – 1 User

Udit Sharma, Kautilya Institute of Technology & Engineering and Apex Institute of Engineering & Technology, Jaipur, India

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8205491573763344876

I am Udit Sharma & I am Campus REP of Kautilya Institute of Technology & Engineering, Jaipur. While shooting this interview, I enjoyed a lot, it was amazing experience. While shooting the videos, I concluded that 4 out of 10 people don’t know about Mozilla and don’t know about Firefox…. I am shocked!! to observe this in my city Jaipur. Even the lecturers & professors of my neighborhood campus i.e. Apex Institute of Engineering & Technology, Jaipur don’t know about Firefox, if they would.. than they don’t know that Firefox is Free, open source etc. They are still using boring, slow, MS Internet Explorer…. I interviewed the professors of my neighborhood campus and included in my On the Street Interview. I told many people about Mozilla Firefox and its features and most of them promised me to use Firefox as there default browser. I observed many people saying that they know about Firefox but they don’t bother to download Firefox and than using it…….as…Firefox doesn’t come default with the MS Windows…as 75% users are still using Windows….. Some people comments are funny & crazy and some people are really have knowledge about Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Open Source etc… I think this “On the Street” project helped me a lot to understand people minds for WEB etc. I am always ready for these kind of projects and I can do anything to promote Mozilla products….. MOZILLA ROCKS!!!!!!

Ahana Datta, Springdales School, New Delhi, India

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8741311080588966700

I was amazed at the response that students were ready to give, even though many of them were not aware of Firefox or Open Source or the difference between Mozilla and Firefox. But I was glad to know that all of them have at least heard of Firefox, may they not be using it. Anyhow, I had a fun session making them aware of the browser and trying to convert them to it!

Gracelyne Fernando, Suburbs of Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, South India

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAV1lRxzSjg

My on the street experience was good.. I met people who weren’t really all that computer literate.  I wish I could have done a more professional campus sorta footage.  i had some hilarious incidents too.. like when I told people to try out firefox for mobiles when its released,one girl joked by showing her nokia 1100 set and said nothing could be used on her mobile…! on the whole it was a fun-filled session.

Anil Pai, Bangalore, India

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1932687697551041735

The campaign was started in the first week on November. Initially I started alone capturing videos in my home locality, at my campus asking questions to my classmates and neighbours. In the second week, I went to shopping mall (Big Bazaar) after buying a mini DV video cassette along with two of my friends in the evening and asked questions to everyone around the mall. The mall security persons and policemen did ask some questions to us to know what we were doing, and we answered that its a marketing project for our college exams… Thankfully they dint ask us to show our mozilla ids.. ( i had ur letter ready in my bag which u had sent the other day,  to show them in case they ask)… We gave them mozilla goodies and they thanked us.. The very next day there was Abode Boot camp goin on in the other part of the city.. I went there with my friend and questioned two guys there, and they answered really well… We thought marketing mozilla in abode boot camp may lead to problems, so we just listened to some demos there and returned back… Some video coverage was also done by me  in the parking lot of my campus asking questions to 1st, 2nd, 3rd and final year students , to check their Mozilla Knowledge..  Finally, it was a great experience for me and my friends. All the speakers of the On the Street campaign video were given a set of Mozilla goodies containing stickers, hats, lanyards, badges etc.. Hope you and Mozilla team will love watching this video and also the other Mozilla Campus Reps who havnt started with the campaign yet will get some idea

Shreyank Gupta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i73_8fR0wo

Vishnu S., VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7843314387379868398

Vineel Reddy, Hyderabad, India

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE2YfbIaSJM

Thanks to all the reps that participated and for everyone that helped review the videos.   I am working to put together the best clips from all the submissions into one highlight reel that we will be showcasing on Air Mozilla and YouTube in early 2009… so keep an eye out for that.

Tags: Campus Reps, firefox, interviews, MoCo, spreadfirefox, video

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 9:19 PM and is filed under Campus Reps, Marketing. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.