[Ocaml-biz] Irish OCaml mascot

[Niall Dalton]

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Tony Edgin wrote:
> 
>>I had an idea for an OCaml logo.
>>
>>Start with Olivier Grisel's logo with the camel head inside
>>the O of OCaml.
>>If we change the spelling to O'Caml, the name looks Irish.
>>Instead of the
>>camel head having sun glasses and chewing on wheat, give the
>>camel a mop of
>>red hair.  This red-haired camel could them become the
>>mascot.  We could even
>>give it an Irish name like Bartley O'Caml or Caitlin O'Caml.
>
> I think it is a perfectly valid *mascot* idea.
> 
> Earlier we discussed - and I can't now remember the participants - that
> a logo is *not* a mascot.  Logos need to serve as responsible,
> respectable business identities.  A Fortune 500 company is never gonna
> glom onto Bartley O'Caml for B2B transactions.  Mascots are good for
> marketing to techies, sports fans, and children.  Brian rightly pointed
> out that a mascot = selling a plush toy.  I'd add, perhaps, a lunchbox
> or keychain dangler.  We're talking schwag here.
> 
> It should be remembered that the Linux penguin wasn't really a marketing
> effort.  It was the winner of a mascot contest started by techies.  In
> the eyes of more stolid businesses, the penguin is either neutral or has
> hurt Linux's brand identity.  Techies love it, they like cute squishy
> stuff and Nerf rockets, but it is very bad business marketing.
> 
> RedHat used good business marketing.  We owe most of the 'stolid and
> responsible' progress in Linux marketing to RedHat.  They picked a
> clean, slick, graphical identity for their product.  Also I doubt that
> 'RedHat' = 'Sharp Dresser' is an accidental connotation, when addressing
> a business audience.  We do call them 'suits'.  These people are
> conscious of dress.  Personal dress, trade dress.
> 
> Dismissing Bartley O'Caml as a logo, but considering it seriously as a
> mascot, here is a further issue.  INRIA is French.  Do you think they
> will ever put their weight behind an Irish national identity?  I doubt
> it.  I think if INRIA has distaste for the mascot, if at some level they
> do not also find it 'kewl', then we are digging ourselves into a hole.
> It would lessen the amount of cooperation we would hope to get out of
> them someday.

As a commercial developer using Caml, I'd have to say I hate such
an idea as a mascot. The fact that I'm Irish only compounds my dislike 
I'm afraid!

Regards,
Niall