Editing ZX81 (section)

=== Marketing ===
The marketing of the ZX81 was handled by Sinclair's long-standing marketing agency Primary Contact (now part of [[Ogilvy & Mather]]), which had provided marketing services for Sinclair since 1971 and was to continue doing so until 1985. Sinclair's entry into the nascent home computing market gave Primary Contact a major challenge – how to market a product simultaneously at hobbyists and at the "man on the street", who probably had little or no computer literacy.{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=97}} The answer was to pursue what the journalist David O'Reilly of ''[[MicroScope]]'' magazine described as a single-minded "user-friendly strategy." Chris Fawkes, one of Primary Contact's directors, explained: "We brought personal computers to the mass market by showing that you didn't have to be a whizzkid to use one."{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=99}} As Clive Sinclair put it in a 1982 interview with ''Your Computer'',

{{blockquote|There are two big markets. There is the hobbyist and the man in the street. The hobbyist was a dead certainty. We knew we could sell to him because we have so much experience of it and we were offering a better product. The much less certain prospect was the man in the street. There the view was that if we offered him a computer plus a self-training book at a keen enough price he would buy by mail order – which, of course, he has.<ref name="YC-Interview" />}}

According to [[Ben Rosen]], by pricing the ZX81 so low, "Sinclair has opened up a completely new market among people who had never previously considered owning a computer." Clive Sinclair acknowledged the role that guesswork had played in his decision to launch the ZX81 on such a large scale: "It was a surmise that the man in the street would want such a computer. He does, and our information is that a lot of people are using the machines avidly."<ref name="ET-interview" /> A ''New Scientist'' retrospective published in 1986 commented:

{{blockquote|Sir Clive's marketing achievement was to downgrade the "concept" of a computer to the point where he could claim to provide one for less than the magical £100 mark. To this end, efficient keyboards and monitors, useful amounts of memory, efficient filing and storage systems and the like were stripped away, to leave an affordable facsimile of a "computer". The market image was more important than what the computer could do, but the burgeoning industry in computer games provided an application which adolescents – young and old – eagerly seized on as the ''raison d'être'' for their new gadget. In the main, it was ignorance of genuine computer technology that fired the success of the ZX range, despite the availability of accessories that, albeit inefficiently, turned the Z80 processor chip at the heart of these up-market toys into the core of a useful machine.{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986}}}}

[[File:ZX81 Sinclair Research advert.jpg|right|thumb|upright=1.35|Sinclair Research's launch advertising for the ZX81. High-profile advertisements such as this were used to promote the benefits and value for money of the ZX81.|alt=A two-page advertising spread showing the ZX81 with a 16&nbsp;KB RAM pack and ZX Printer attached, next to the headline "Sinclair ZX81 Personal Computer – the heart of a system that grows with you"]]
High-profile advertising was central to the marketing campaign. Although Sinclair Research was a relatively small company, it had a long-standing policy of using large-scale advertisements that stood out in stark contrast to the more muted advertisements of other manufacturers. Superlatives, exhortations, appeals to patriotism, testimonials, eye-catching drawings and photographs on double-page spreads, varying from month to month, were used to drum up mail order business for Sinclair.{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=21}} The launch advertising for the ZX81 illustrates this approach. A photograph of the ZX81 alongside the official Sinclair peripherals dominated the centre of a double-page spread. The value for money of Sinclair's products was emphasised by the prices being printed in larger type than any other text on the spread. The ZX81's benefits were promoted with the aspirational slogan "Sinclair ZX81 Personal Computer – the heart of a system that grows with you". The advertisement highlighted ''ZX81 BASIC Programming'', the manual written by Steve Vickers, as "a complete course in BASIC programming, from first principles to complex programs." The educational benefits of the ZX81 were stressed ("it's still very simple to teach yourself computing") and its technical advantages were explained in relatively non-technical terms. For instance, the ZX81's idiosyncratic method of typing commands with a single keystroke – the result of the memory-saving method of using one-byte tokens to represent keywords{{sfn|Nash|1984|p=102}} – was presented as "eliminat[ing] a great deal of tiresome typing". The ZX81's British character was emphasised; it was "designed by Sinclair and custom-built in Britain."<ref name="SRadvert">[[#SRadvert|''Everyday Electronics'' (April 1981)]]</ref> Sinclair's advertising in the United States provides an illustration of how the company perceived the ZX81's purpose:

{{blockquote|For less than $100, the Sinclair ZX81 will get you started in personal computing right now. Your children will gain an understanding of computers that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. And you will be prepared to make informed decisions about using and buying computers, both in your career and in your home.<ref>[[#PopSciadvert|''Popular Science'' (Oct 1982)]]</ref>}}

This approach to advertising was driven by Sinclair's reliance on mail-order marketing. It came with a high up-front cost in terms of purchasing space in publications but it had the advantage of ensuring that all sales were firm and pre-paid. A big splash on launch produced a large influx of cash at the outset of a campaign, though it did also depend on the advertiser having enough product to satisfy the initial surge in demand. The advertisements served an additional purpose of priming the market for over-the-counter sales by "getting the story across", as Clive Sinclair put it: "Not that big a proportion do buy on mail order, but they see the ads, and that helps to prepare them for buying when the item appears in the shops."{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=22}}

Sinclair himself became a focal point for the marketing campaign, putting a human face on the business, while Sinclair Research was portrayed in the media as a plucky British challenger taking on the technical and marketing might of giant American and Japanese corporations. As David O'Reilly noted, "by astute use of public relations, particularly playing up his image of a Briton taking on the world, Sinclair has become the best-known name in micros."{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=98}} The popular press soon latched onto the image. His "Uncle Clive" persona is said to have been created by the gossip columnist for ''[[Personal Computer World]]'',{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=97}} while the media praised Sinclair as a visionary genius (or even, in the words of ''[[The Sun (United Kingdom)|The Sun]]'', "the most prodigious inventor since [[Leonardo da Vinci|Leonardo]].") As Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy put it, Sinclair outgrew "the role of microcomputer manufacturer and accepted the mantle of pioneering [[boffin]] leading Britain into a technological utopia."{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=114}}

Pricing was central to the marketing strategy, as it had been through Sinclair's career. The ZX81 had been designed to meet a £70 price point and was launched at a price of £69.95 (built) or £49.95 (kit). One Sinclair brochure presented a side-by-side comparison of the ZX81 with the four machines that Sinclair considered its main rivals – the [[Acorn Atom]], [[Apple II Plus]], [[Commodore PET]] and [[TRS-80]]. The comparison highlighted the vast differences in cost, from £630 in the case of the Apple II Plus to just £70 for the ZX81, though even by Sinclair's own comparison the Apple was by far the more capable machine.<ref name="SRbrochure">[[#SRbrochure|Sinclair Research sales brochure (1981)]]</ref>

According to Sinclair himself, the £69.95 price was chosen after applying the "[[Experience curve effects|experience curve]]" developed by the [[Boston Consulting Group]]. Sinclair's prior experience in the calculator market had highlighted the fact that a product will be more profitable selling at (for instance) twice the manufactured cost than at three times. He could have launched the ZX81 at a higher price, marketing it in a more traditional way as a premium product, but chose not to. In effect, he used the lower price to establish an unassailable lead before the competition moved in.<ref name="Lorenz">[[#FT150482|Lorenz (15 April 1982)]]</ref>

An essential part of Sinclair's marketing strategy was to use regular cost-cutting at strategic intervals to maintain market share. Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy comment that Sinclair's approach was "to secure and extend [his] market lead and panic the competition. While most companies reduce prices when their products are in steep decline, Sinclair tends to discount shortly after sales have peaked. The advantage of his approach is that vacillating customers are drawn into the fold while the product's promotion retains a commercial urgency, and the costings of the competition are thrown into utter disarray."{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=143}}

This tactic proved highly successful, with Sinclair announcing by March 1982 that it had sold 250,000 ZX81s worldwide. 50,000 computers were sold each month, 60% outside the UK, despite Sinclair and W. H. Smith being the only distributors.{{r|theage19820309}}{{r|Clarke}} Despite the launch of its successor, the [[ZX Spectrum]], Sinclair reportedly intended to increase ZX81 production to 150,000 a month.<ref name="libes198209">{{Cite magazine |last=Libes |first=Sol |date=September 1982 |title=Bytelines |url=https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1982-09/page/n488/mode/1up?view=theater |access-date=2024-12-30 |magazine=BYTE |pages=490–493}}</ref> When sales fell after the Spectrum's debut, Sinclair reduced the price of the pre-assembled version to £49.95 in May 1982. It was cut by another £10 the following April. Despite the increased competition from much more capable computers, the ZX81 was still shipping in excess of 30,000 units a month even as late as July 1983, more than two years after it had been launched.{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=259}} By that time, according to Sinclair Research, over 1.5&nbsp;million ZX81s had been sold.<ref name="Sinclair-Research" />