Master Overclocking Arena 2009

[massman]

K404, thank you for rewording what I've been trying to tell Massman
from our point of view having an unrestricted qualifier is the most appealing, but for the company hosting the contest might not look that good in the end;

I did in fact understand what you were saying and I'm not completely blinded by my own opinions that I don't understand the reasoning behind the choice for MSI-branded hardware in the online qualifiers.

I just wanted to point out that there might be a better solution both for the PR people of MSI and the overclockers that want to take part in this competition. Yes, possibly more positive PR than they would get by only using MSI gear in the qualifiers.

[N3RO]

I dont care about buying some MSI/Gigabyte/(...) to join some competition if my country is included

But for Portugal and some other countries from EU* (and probably other continents too) the problem is: the overclockers' countries are not included.

So, in my pov, they need to redraw this kind of events and rename it to "Selected countries/overclockers Competition 200x" or just make it fair to everyone.

If the local representant is not able to set up the QF of his country (€€, interesting or something else), the HQ of the company should make it possible for these countries.
Overclockers are not responsible about the sales/marketing impact of the company in their country - lets make it fair to everyone - if you find the "best overclocker of Europe/USA/Asia/..." you should include all countries.

After this we can talk about the hardware restrictions


*- The European Union is composed of 27 independent sovereign states which are known as member states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

[K404]

In some ways it would be more beneficial to the company to push the unrepresented countries the hardest as I suspect it means that the companies presence in that country is maybe a bit weak and could use the exposure

[Monstru]

MSI didn't asnwer my emails even untill now. Wow, what a great PR department we have here. So have luck guys in finding the best overclocker from the countries included in the qualifiers!

[Aerou]

From my experience, mails don't work Monstru in the majority of companies, unless people you know work there. Sadly.

CALL THEM! Wish you luck

[DeDaL]

ROFL guys

MSI cpu !!!

this 920 D0 ES i recieved from our MSI local office, and little impressed

[Trouffman]

hey ? you not assigned ? :/

who's assigned for turkey so ?

[Donor]

I’m a manager of TopMods.NET team and very often have problems with PR managers who don’t understand what overclocking is at all. But they have made a career, become a PR managers and just don’t want to listen anybody. So I’ve red Massmans’s and jmke’s discussion very carefully.
If MSI PR managers are professionals they must know about virus marketing conception of Set Godin (“Idea Virus”). This competitions are a virus marketing. So if you use this instrument you should use it correctly.
For using virus marketing method you should fulfill at least two conditions: 1) bright idea (extreme overclocking, competitions) and 2) support of the audience’s core.
Godin writes that there is a core of audience that affects all target audience. He calls them “moderators of fashion”. Active members of the target audience take moderator’s opinion and transfer it further into the target audience.
So what’s MSI does? They are using virus marketing method by showing that their gear is used by overclockers. And ordinary people will think that MSI gear has additional value even if they will never do overclocking themselves. BUT (and that what Massman about) they quarrel with the audiences core! Overclockers are disappointed and angry!
Of course, press will write good things about competition (they were paid for that) and audience will read it. But after that making their choice they will read Internet and consult with audience’s core and they will hear many bad thing about MSI. Because the most skilled and respected members of target audience were angry by them. They will not get any discount and all their weaknesses will be exaggerated.
Is that they are paying for?!

I think that the regional competitions should be conducted in a following way:

1-st phase: wide online selection opened for everybody and any hardware. Information should be spread through specialized forums and direct mails to overclockers (organized by overclockers) without any wide advertisement. There is no negative affects by showing that everybody will use Asus or DFI because overclockers (and starting overclockers either) already are not MSI target audience. They are the PR method!

2-nd phase: Selected overclockers are taking part in a regional (online or offline) final using only MSI gear provided by MSI. And MSI should work for selecting good pieces in order to show something! This event should be promoted on sites with wide target audience.

3-d phase: you know – worldwide final.

In this way brand can cut expenses by organizing 1-st phase among few countries. They also can provide just several configs per country or several countries and give not much money in order overclockers from other cities could come to that config . That’s not such expensive as a plane tickets.

And if MSI would be capable to make the things right they’ll of course get that virus effect they are paying for. And now they just wasting their money doing “as Gigabyte does” and “because Gigabyte does” but not like Gigabyte does.

[SF3D]

Good post! I am a bit frustrated by all this, cause GOOC is coming and there is not so many days left to do the qualification runs.

Of course I would like to win the local qualification, but first I need to know what to do

[jmke]

Of course, press will write good things about competition (they were paid for that)

I heartily disagree with the bolded part.

[Donor]

jmke, sorry! I didn't want to offend anybody. There is no direct connection between "paid" and "write good", but advertising must be paid for and nobody will spoil relationships with their customers.

[Monstru]

Donor - great sense and great post, I totally agree with what you said. We should add that last year that was the way they organised the event, and it was a very good organised event I must say. Unfortunately, I see that this year they decided to change this, and not in a good way. I am just sad about that.

The problem with most companies these days is that they fear the crysis and they are doing budget cuts, but unfortunately they are cutting down the wrong things. Especially in such times, advertising, promovation and PR should under no condition be cut down. Even if it's harsh, this is the moment to gain market share, not loose it. Or...without propper promovation, it is very hard to do that.

[jmke]

we were contacted by MSI Netherland which will do preliminary for Benelux: NO brand restriction for 1st round!

[pepinorang]

we were contacted by MSI Netherland which will do preliminary for Benelux: NO brand restriction for 1st round!

Trouff, can you see if this can be applicable for France too ? Actual rules are not a problem at all for me but as well as we see here, I think there will be a lot more participants for online qualifications if rules changes for France too...

Bye
p€p|n0r@ng

[massman]

Actually, ever since the first guidelines were sent to me, there was not obligation to use MSI hardware in the online qualifiers. I got thrown off, by Trouffman's post, I guess.

So, in short, good choice, MSI

[jmke]

all that typing and bandwidth wasted for nothing! nice going PJ! :p

[Donor]

Good for you guys that your local offices of MSI are listening to overclockers. Ours does not.
Last year we had here in Russia the competition in the way I described before: everybody could compete using any hardware to choose best overclockers and then there was a regional final on MSI gear that were widely covered in the Russian Hardware magazine and in the Internet. Won the best – DeDaL did with a WR in 3D Mark 2005. Today MSI has a new PR manager who has no idea what overclock is it. Russian MSI has the main goal – to show their bosses how many people would see promo pages in the Internet. And they do not care who they are and what they will see. They don’t care about real effect of their PR action.
They said that Hardware magazine who did the right things last year is a bad partner for them and didn’t give them the cover they paid for. OK, that is not our business. Then they contacted us directly and asked what to do? We told them that there is two ways: let overclockers to use any hardware they want or provide us with several configs and a budget for LN2 and transportation (Russia is a long distance country) in order we can organize wide selection of overclockers in the main towns of the country. Then they just disappeared.
Lately we had found that they contacted other site which calls themselves overclockers site and has quite big audience but actually has no contacts with skilled overclockers in our country and offered them to conduct this competition. Of course this site had contacted to us. And now in few days before official start of local stages we should organize the selection at least in one city (Moscow) using a single config (you saw the CPU that DeDaL showed above) without any budget (we hope that they will pay us at least LN2 which now we should buy).
Of course Russian overclockers widely spread all over the country would be very angry despite that we are trying to do our best in this situation. Everybody will sure that it will not be a fair play.
Our captain is mad about this too but we will take care about this competition because we don’t want that oveclocking in our country become a circus. And in addition to everything and after they quarreled with Hardware magazine Russian MSI said that to the final as editor will go the person who provide them with cover in any offline magazine. They just need to show coverage and they are not bother if overclockers audience receive a proper information about finals in time or not.
Of course there is their money and that is our decision whether to help them or not but I want to ask them one question: if they understand what they are spending their money for or not?

[krystaljasmine]

MOA 2009 is coming up?...
Time flies... :-)

[Donor]

As it’s said – it’s all about money. Some shop decided that overclockers are kids who will make them advertisement for free. And TopMods.NET is not participating in MOA 2009. The winner will be from Russian Overclockers team (as I was told). No DeDaL, no NeoFroce. Forget it!
And here is a page of our national stage in one day before the start: http://msi.overclockers.ru/

[massman]

Or you could participate, win and let the message you're trying to send go with you to Germany and eventually Taiwan

[NeoForce]

We can participate - but we can`t win - places are already distributed. No competition in Russia at all. Awful. Trips to European finals are sold out =(.

[massman]

oh :-/

[jmke]

We can participate - but we can`t win - places are already distributed. No competition in Russia at all. Awful. Trips to European finals are sold out =(.

what? how its that fair?

[Donor]

Buhaha! MSI just calld me and made a row that we are breaking our agreements! We havn't got any agreements with them! We had no budgets for LN2 or transport we have just let them make offline selection in our OCClub on their gear. And when they said that we must do it in some shop instead, we just refused!

[NeoForce]

I was told that I have no chances....