Dell, Microsoft and Intel- Kindergarden Teachers

What are you willing to share for $50,000 ? Launched about a month ago, a contest from Dell, with the help of Microsoft and Intel, gives the most basic and arbitrary challenges, in the hopes of getting some prospects from the IT world. The challenges themselves are arbitrary because even if you get them wrong the site just tells you the right answer, and moves you to the next challenge.

So is this good marketing? Should we judge the silly game by the caliber of the campaign-- or vice versa? I think this is great. Stupid, but great. If you're an IT person (or Hero in their lingo) then you may or may not know the right answers to "What kind of system should you build for a small company that needs an Exchange Server". As you drag across the 'Poweredge Dell Server' and the 'Microsoft Server 2008' and the 'Intel Xeon Core 5 Super' (or whatever...) you're really just interacting with these brands.

The bottom line is that I spent 10 minutes staring at Dell logos and reading about Intel chips and thinking about building servers... If I did that, than I may be a good prospect for these companies to call on to try to sell me a server. (Trust me-- I'm not) The marketing dept (which probably got a lot of heat early on for proposing a game where IT professionals build servers) likely achieved their objective. They also structured the experience design to promote engagement, return visits, viral distribution , and hopefully some top of mind.

Now as far as quality, they didn't qualify me as a lead. Company was optional in the registration, and there were no questions about what I do. This means that a 24 year old from Manitoba who likes computers (and needs to move out of his mothers basement) is just as eligible for the draw as the guy buying $20mil a year for his financial institution. Oh well. Sometimes with Viral Marketing, you accept the fact that quantity is going to outweigh quality. Site Link: http://www.dellenterprise.com