In the thread about 'Rejected' Xara X Improvements I wrote about celebrity-themed versions of Xara X. Here's what I wrote:
[rossquote]The facination with celebrities creates a real opportunity for Xara Ltd. - For instance they could market "Xara X - The Benny Hill Edition". It could feature a great xara portrait of Benny (by Vladimyr) on the splash screen. (It could also feature new bevel types called 'bum cheeks' and 'clevage'). There could be numerous celebrity additions. I know I'd love to own a Rolf Harris (Tie-me-kangaroo-down-boy) Edition! You know Wolfgang craves a Sandra Bullock Edition and CrowHaven no doubt would buy a Brandon Lee Edition. Heck, Xara could create a way for dedicated xara users to customize the splash screen in this regard and then remunerate the 'artist' with commissions on each one sold. That is, if I create the splash for the Leonardo Da Vinci Edition then for each copy sold I'd get, say, ten bucks. Xara could of course charge ten bucks more for a celebrity edition so they wouldn't be out anything. Besides this would be a real service to Wolfgang. He needs to feed his obsession![/rossquote]
There might just be something practical in the idea. Imagine if Xara offered a $20 to $30 plugin that would allow custom 'skinning' of Xara X. No doubt many users would be interested. Furthermore, at the XaraClub site they could allow users to upload their skins for others to use. Just as Xara sells $2 fonts, they could sell $2 skin-sets. Creators of the skin would get $1 added to their XaraClub account for each skin they created that is purchased. Xara limited would get the other buck for their trouble - or better yet they could set up a scholarship fund to help with the education costs of promising young Xartists. I suspect such a 'skinning' program could be popular. It would be fun for existing Xara users but might also help create a positive marketing buzz that could spread the word about Xara.
The variety of skin styles that could be created would be practically endless. There could certainly be the celebrity ones but also things like gel effects, rusty, high-tech, woody, stone etc. It seems to me that providing users a way to create skins is preferable to just hiring a graphic artist to do a bunch. To be a popular concept you'd really want it to be flexible. I'm thinking the system would allow changing the program's desktop icon, the splash screen graphic, and all toolbar icons & toolbar background from the default gray to a bitmap. Such flexibility could likely be coded quite easily without compromising program performance.
What do you think? Could such a scheme have any marketing benefit?
Regards, Ross
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