What the....?

David Letterman "Showcases" the iPad - Very Funny

Letterman in his usual idiotic style shows off just how great he is with technology when showing off the iPad.

Very funny and he does such a great job of making a fool of himself.

 

 

KFC: Calling Me to Kill Me

Although I avoid referring to myself as a vegetarian because of the elitist implications that go with the label just like I avoid telling anyone I'm earning a master's degree with hopes of eventually moving on to earn a PhD, I've been avoiding meat since the start of 2010. 

via www.justiffjones.com

Just look whats coming KFC lovers - Love this post and if Tiger Woods new ad doesn't make you throw up then maybe this "sandwich" will

Does the new Tiger Woods Nike Ad make you sick?

I don't know about you but  after watching the ad a number of times over the last few days I just don't get the strategy behind the new Tiger Woods Ad for Nike.

I have serious issues with it. I think it is in poor taste to use his late fathers voice and comments as part of a campaign that is clearly about rebuilding Tigers image and personal credibility with the fan and customer base. Especially considering the circumstances and that his father was long dead prior to the news of his affairs came out.

 Tiger must have agreed to the advert and to have this released just as he was returning to competitive golf reeks of insincerity and a totally orchestrated campaign.

Why did he agree to it? I suppose that is one of the things that bugs me the most as like most golf fans I have always put Tiger on a pedestal as a golfing great. Yes his personal image has taken a bashing but  I didn't really care about his off course activities as they were his own business and made public by those wanting to profit from the circumstances. I was actually looking forward to his return and following his progress at the masters but now rather than hoping for a magical comeback I just don't care.  For me the advert has given more credibility to the mistresses and critics who have been slamming Tigers morals and ethics. By choosing to do something in such poor taste his own personal brand surely must suffer further with the publics opinion of his ethics.

Try not to vomit at the staging and unashamed insincerity!

 

Am I being a little naive?

Yes I know Tigers discretions have been huge news and the huge profits for companies & masses employed purely by the huge revenue he generates requires some form of orchestrated comeback but come on! You don't go capitalizing on dead family members credibility and no matter what the context the comments were originally made in it is just bad taste and a little bit sick to go down that path!

New marketing intiatives in the tradeshow and exhibition arena

It does take a lot to get me excited sometimes but I have just come from a meeting with a new strategic partner for  our business Vidcom NZ  and I am pumped!

Sometimes it really sucks when you are an exhibitor. You, along with every other exhibitor are fighting for a point of difference to entice the throng of people into your stand and get a return on the substantial cost of just being there let alone grow your business!

What I was shown was proximity (location based) marketing services that we could offer  to event, exhibition, trade show and conference organisers.

This premium service utilises blue-tooth technology to send messages, advertisements or video files to blue-tooth enabled devices such as mobile phones in the proximity. Effectively what this will mean is that people with mobile phones entering an exhibition can receive messages driving them to particular areas, or exhibitors.

Imagine being able to directly target every person attending an event via blue-tooth message as they get out of their cars or enter the building promoting an event specific special or giveaway to drive them to your stand. What would the response rate be? How about the ROI  for the show? Personally I think this is one of the biggest innovations in attracting prospective clients at shows for years!

With Vidcom being a leader in the audio visual rental market we can see the technology will give exhibition organizers an additional revenue stream in what is a very tight market and will appeal to many exhibitors. The technology will most likely be its own biggest form of advertising as exhibitors will want to get in on the action when they see the messages come out especially if they see the exhibitors stands that utilize the service have increased traffic.

The technology does have huge potential internationally as well - imagine walking down the street and as you approach a cafe receiving a message with a discount code for  a coffee or todays lunchtime special.  In New Zealand this particular strategy may be in breach of the unsolicited electronic messages act (anti spam legislation) so a tough break for those looking at using it here. However there have been a number of leaps forward with GPS based technology in mobile devices and proximity marketing such as Placecast in the US using location marketing software in an "opt in" situation for mobile users and it is only a matter of time before this type of service is available here.

I don't profess to be a guru in this area but boy it excites me and would be keen to learn more on it if anyone has info on location based or proximity marketing technology and strategies I would love to hear from them.

Bad Business Whangamata Style

Two things were reinforced for me over the Easter holidays.

1. Some people should never run a business!

2. Dale Carnegie was a genius.

While on holiday my partner who is a well respected interior designer (and very shrewd business woman) and I went on the hunt for some retro furniture to restore for our new house. The local "antique" and second hand goods store was a bit of  goldmine and the owner sent us down to the warehouse to look through at excess stock in storage with someone else.

We ended up negotiating a great deal on a set of six dining chairs and five  various other seats that could either be restored for us or on sold to my partners clients. The deposit was paid list of goods drawn up and delivery arranged on the spot.

Come delivery day no one turned up and no calls were received. We went down to the store and the owner  said she wasn't going to sell the goods to us now as they were sold far too cheap and offered our money back. Needless to say her approach was not well received and I took a back seat while my partner and the store owner went hammer and tongs each escalating the threats against each other until apparently we were going to court over the matter as well as being trespassed from the premises.

Not being one to want to waste too much time and energy on this now it had got completely out of hand I tried a different approach from Dale Carnegie's world famous book "How to win friends and influence people".  One of the pieces of advice from his book I have found most valuable is in part three "Win people to your way of thinking" the first two chapters relate to winning people over in arguments and the first things to do is acknowledge their point of view.

With a leap of faith from my belief in the philosophies from the book I spoke to the owner and  told her how I completely understood how she felt about the matter. Having two demanding, irrational out of towner's coming in  and negotiating a price on goods with someone and her not getting the chance to sign off on the deal before it was done must have been infuriating & if it was me I would have most likely fired the person who made the deal. I went on to say she must really hate us coming in and spending our money all around town like we do. Before I even finished that sentence she cut me off saying how much she actually relied on out of town business and we weren't really that bad. She then went on to talk about how she had just had and operation and really wasn't in the best of moods and apologised to me before organising for someone to meet at the storage facility to hand our furniture over.

If the business owner had maybe read the same book and had phoned us as soon as she had heard what her assistant had sold the furniture for apologising in advance and explaining her situation while saying that she would have completely understood if we wanted to hold her to the price we would have quite happily discussed the matter paid about 15% more than the original agreed price.

I am sure there are worse horror stories out there of terrible customer service it just still astounds me that people can stay in business despite their horrific attitudes and business acumen.

Prostitutes using location marketing the next big thing?

In a strange city with no idea of where to eat out? Imagine being able to go for a wander down the street and your mobile phone alerts you as to specific cafes and restaurants with specials on in you vicinity or where the local brothel is. Now  whether you find this creepy intrusive or can't wait to try it out it is a reality.

One example of companies developing this technology is Placecast a private equity backed company specialising in location based mobile marketing. Placecast are developing their "opt in" service where consumers can join through the facebook page, choose what they want to recieve updates on and get location specific specials, updates from advertisers in their vicinity. Check out their Youtube video here to get their very own (tacky) take on the service. Tacky the video may be but this technology surely will take off with the ever growing capabilities of our mobile devices and millions being invested into geotagging development

I can see this taking off as advertisers see the benefits in location specific advertising and potential benefits over such mediums as yellow pages.

How would you feel about getting alerts via your mobile while you are walking past a store.

How far will it go and what would the restrictions be on advertising?

Now prostituion is legal in New Zealand - Imagine wondering down the street and getting an alert from the local hooker "quiet day at the office? Meet you on the corner of X & Y streets at 3 for a $50 special"

Personally I am not sure I would subscribe to the service as I am a 30 something shopaphobic guy who makes a beeline for the shop he needs to go to and gets the hell out of there as soon as he can.  But hey if I was young single desparate and drunk maybe it would have its benefits.

The Power of Twitter

Once again I was reminded of the power of twitter in both B2B and B2C relationships today.

My company (Vidcom NZ) specialises in providing audio visual services and support to conference venues and companies for events, trade shows and presentations. I have a number of different twitter searches running on tweetdeck to monitor social media traffic different competitors, prospects, customers and look for potential business opportunities. One five star hotel tweeted out a "today only" special to fill some spaces in its luxury spa for masage treatments which I promptly replied to and then booked my better half in. I then retweeted and within an hour they were fully booked for the day. A couple of friendly tweets back and forth and the next I knew my partner was given extra special treatment and an additional half hour session plus free membership to a discount club.

Over the course of the day I also came accross three leads for conferences coming up that my sales team could target and also managed to put out a SOS call to help fill a vacancy for a junior account managers position we are creating. In the evening one of my tweetdeck searches revealed someone in the UK wanting advice on conquering nerves before giving a presentation so I was able to offer some friendly advice and refer them through to a couple of helpful websites and blogs. His response ("I asked, and Twitter gave. Thank you @Glennmarvin") sums up how things really are moving.

People aren't just using Google as the almighty search engine oracle, they are asking their ever growing global network utilising social media. Social media in business is going to be even more critical in the times ahead. The relationships we grow through social media can be as powerful as the more traditional face to face business reltaionships as we have more opportunities to offer assistance freely in an online world than off. One thing that hasn't (and I hope never will) change is that people like doing business with people they know and trust. Those that take the time to build relationships online and openly and genuinely interact and help others online will benefit the most offline.

DONT TRY AND SELL TO EVERYONE YOU MEET!

Help others, offer assistance where appropriate and people will end up coming to you!

Are Inbound & Social Media Marketers in NZ missing the mark?

I couldn't believe the poor ranking when searching for additional assistance for inbound marketing strategies for our companies based in Australia and New Zealand. First things first using Google I was faced with page after page of inbound travel information pages from various airlines and car rental companies when searching under "inbound marketing adivce New Zealand". The one and only relevent hit that came up on page one was the online marketer blog by netconcepts (big ups to you guys).

Thankfuly when searching for social media marketing in NZ there was a plethora of sites and bloggers to trawl through. Once again onlinemarketer came in top dog so great work going on behind the scenes there! With the term "inbound marketing" rapidly becoming the preferred terminology I was surprised that so few experts in SEO and inbound marketing weren't ranked much higher.

While I may be relatively fresh on the scene surely we all pride ourselves on keeping ahead of the curve. Are we behind the eight ball? Do social media marketers have to position themselves better under the more corporately palatable term of "Inbound" marketers to get more traction in the B2b scene? Or am I just over reacting? Would love to get your feedback.

How can social media help when unions take strike action?

Bristish Airways has recently retained the services of DigitalAgency.com to create a social media strategy for them to increase the touch points with its customers base and provide them with the ability to get updates on availability of services etc out fast if the upcoming threatened industrial action goes ahead.

CEO Willie Walsh has even got in behind the strategy posting a "personal" two and a half minute video clip on YouTube in which he outlines his and the airlines position and how dissapointed for their customers he is that the strike action has been called. He also states they have done everything they can in the negotiations with the union.

By getting the message out through social media there is no doubt that the negative impact on BA's brand will be reduced as many customers will at least have an understanding of the issue and be kept informed of what is happening in a much more real time way than in the past when strikes were in place.

This is going to be a dogfight and it will hurt everyone however by utilising mediums such as twitter to update travellers BA may also enjoy the flow on effect of reduced calls and complaints over the strike period so whilst not directly contributing to additional sales in this manner social media is protecting the lifetime value of clients.

Is Myspace going to suffer and slow death?

Here today gone sometime next year? Will Myspace be one of the next big casualties in the in the social media space. With failing popularity and advertisers drifting away Myspace are trying to go back to basics and revive the site. The following article from IR Alert (An investors info site) sums it up nicely. IR Alert | | As MySpace Slips Far Behind Its Social-Media Brethren, Company Makes Last-Ditch Effort to Remain Vital By Returning to Its Roots and Abandoning Portal-Like Features

Labels: advertising inbound marketing, marketing, myspace, social media