This is a match made in mis-marketing heaven.
Failed Marketer Goes To Arecont
Intransa is one of the most spectacular failures in the history of video surveillance, blowing through $100+ million in funding.
Intransa Marketing
Intransa's marketing guru leader guy was Jeff Whitney who brought such cringeworthy inventions as flexi green guy and the imaginary secret sauce that made Intransa's box better than the same one purchased off the shelf.
Arecont
Now, he is joining forces with mismarketing legend Arecont Vision, becoming their VP of marketing.
Arecont is famous in their own right with wild camera replacement claims, false advertising, and their Spam, Twinkies and Arecont metric.
Arecont's Previous Marketing VP
The last Arecont marketing executive bolted to Digital Watchdog earlier this year. On his way out of Arecont, he had this to say:
"Like me, you may represent a company where the executives are afraid of what competitors or customers might say about them."
That is Arecont is a nutshell. Say crazy things, screw over customers and then blame people who call it out.
Intransa Reborn
Not only has Intransa been resurrected as a new company with a similar name, voiding warranties and charging for customer support, they have a big new vision tactic. As Viakoo, they are offering video surveillance system monitoring for a monthly charge, though they will need lots of luck getting traction after burning so many of their partners and customers.
What's Next for Arecont?
This has been the quietest period of Arecont marketing in years. However, with their new marketing maestro aboard, perhaps we will see a reinvigoration shortly.
I just want to know if this means Flexi Green Guy will be rebadged and making a comeback?
"What's Next for Arecont?"
I think being bought, but question is by who. Maybe for whatever patent that keeps them the only h264 multi-imager panoramic camera provider. (I could be wrong on that.)
This whole item feels like a reckoning. I wonder why this discussion should have started in the first place. It doesn't add to my knowledge on the surveillance industry. It's not an objective description on how good or bad the products or the service is, but purely playing the man instead of the ball... I don't care who leads the marketing department, I just care about the quality of the cameras, the business model, the prices,...
I'm sure you'll disagree with me, but I'm not sure that I'd call him a 'failed' marketer.
Intransa had a questionable value proposition, but from a marketing perspective I would say they did much better than average for the security industry. They had unique branding, a color strategy (I don't think anyone else will touch neon green as a company color in this industry for a while) and usually had a solid presense at various trade-shows. Given some of the technical limitation of the product it may have been hard to build a re-world marketing program around what was available to work with.
But, measured solely on their marketing I wouldn't call Jeff a failure. (note: I've never even met the guy, have no personal interest in this one way or the other).
"Intransa had a questionable value proposition, but from a marketing perspective I would say they did much better than average for the security industry."
He had 10x the budget of the average security industry company (easily). Has to be compared to money spent.
And if your key strengths are 'color strategy' and 'trade-show' booths, that's a very low standard for a Silicon Valley marketing executive.
Plus, I dealt with him repeatedly. He was pretty terrible at marketing. And the company failed. And he was the guy who ran marketing for 7 years, blowing through tons of money.
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