Sunday, April 26, 2009
Marketing your iPhone apps
The iPhone-plus-AppStore is a brilliant and groundbreaking model for the future of mobile marketing. I've written before how effective the two work in conjunction to give users the best mobile experience by far. By getting it completely right Apple has changed the mobile landscape forever. But how effective is the AppStore as a marketing tool?
This reveal-all presentation by iPhone analytics firm PinchMedia provides an early insight in the new medium. It tells us how important it is to get yourself into at least the Top 100 at some point in time ("bunch up your publicity"); why it's generally better to choose paid-for over an advertising-supported business model; and how sticky the various categories of apps really are (you'll be amazed).
PinchMedia, we thank you. Finally the iPhone/AppStore ecosystem comes alive, supported by some proper metrics.
Why should I buy New Moon rice?
Looking at this poster I can think of three reasons:
1. It's Triple-A Premium. That sounds really, really premium.
2. I can choose from no fewer than six different packs.
3. The girl seems to like it.
So either this is the message New Moon choose to spend their advertising dollars on, or they need an advertising agency.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The wireless past
In the old days conference tables looked like this: pristine...
... and this is what I came across the other day:
Somewhere along the line things have taken a wrong turn.
... and this is what I came across the other day:
Somewhere along the line things have taken a wrong turn.
Increasing loyalty doesn't need to cost anything
"Spot the differences"Solitaire is the highest tier in Singapore Airlines' frequent flier programme. Its perks are incredibly popular. I know people who normally fly Economy (which doesn't contribute towards Solitaire qualification - you have to fly Business or First) but throughout the year carefully spend the extra money on a few Business Class flights in order to stay Solitaire. Perks are things like priority seat reservations and luggage handling, access to SIA's First Class lounges all over the world, and the prized First Class check in at Changi Airport (the Ritz Carlton among check ins).
So Singapore Airlines are a textbook example of perfect loyalty managers? Not always. In 2008, for inexplicable reasons, Singapore Airlines removed the number of membership years which until then had adorned each card. It's the easiest thing to do, and it doesn't cost the company a dime. Credit card companies have known this for a long time. It reminds people time and again of the period they've been valued customers, and it provides a subtle but continuous incentive to stay that way and increase the little magic number.
I just received my new Solitaire card, and I was pleased to see that SIA 1) hasn't thrown away the precious information of their top tier customers' seniority and 2) has put it back where it belongs - on the card.
If you want to increase customer loyalty you don't always need to throw money at it. Common sense helps too.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Facebook, The Electronic Friendship Generator
Hilarious! I have nothing to add to this.
And please, PLEASE can someone make Twitter, blogging and email versions??
Starhub's Not-So-Digital-Lifestyle
Some things you just don't make up. Digital superstar Starhub sends me an email, telling me there's such a thing as a "Digital Lifestyle" and how exciting it all is. Can you spare us a few minutes to answer a survey about it?
Of course, always. I mean, I practically live the digital lifestyle, sitting behind my desk, surrounded by heaps of gadgets and emailing, blogging and twittering my little heart out. So naturally I click on the link.
Sorry, your browser is not supported. Please use Internet Explorer version 6.0 and above, or FireFox version 2.0 and above. Your current browser is Safari 528.16
So much for Starhub's version of The Digital Lifestyle. I rest my case.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
5 Reasons to pick up blogging
After a two-and-a-half-year absence, blogging is back in my life. Why now? Five very different things have conspired to my re-entry in the blogosphere. One is personal. The other four are incredibly relevant to every marketer.
1. Popular demand. Lots of people over the past years told me it was a pity I'd stopped posting. Apart from the flattering effect (which wears off pretty quickly) it built up to an increasing feeling of guilt. Contrarily to feeling flattered, guilt lingers. And it builds up over time. All it then needs is some help, which came from technology.
2. Phone cameras. Pictures help incredibly when you want to get a point across. Speaking for myself, the reverse is even true: one feels compelled to make a point when one sees the picture that goes with it. So always having a camera in your pocket has an enormous impact your ability to shape thoughts and share them with the world. Add to that the fact that a few phone makers were quick to recognize this and turned their horrible crapcams into fully-blown, usable cameras. Thank you, Nokia.
3. Online social networks. It's great to be able to stay connected and communicate with many friends and business contacts, bridging enormous distances and gaps in time. But while doing that I feel an increasing need to have an 'anchor presence' on the Web as well. A place where you put your own original content, a place where you can express ideas and thougts that are larger than bite-size. A profile page is not enough. A blog gives you all the room in the world.
44. Twitter. So now we've covered three basic human needs: a social network, the ability to communicate, and a place you can call your mental home. Anything missing? Yes, opportunity. Enter Twitter. Twitter fills the little gaps in between. What's more important, it does to blogging what the phone camera did to photography. It may not be an ideal tool but it's simple and lightweight, and you can afford to always have it on you and use it on the go. But a person cannot live by bite sized thoughts and visuals only. (At least I can't - I'm not speaking for the average politician of course.) So for me, tweeting and blogging are inseparable - one cannot live long without the other.
5. The iPhone. Or in my case, the iPod Touch. Hat off to Apple, who came up not just with a brilliant little gadget, but withba while ecosystem that put them at the nexus of all mobile developments. It's not just that we now have an elegant mobile device with a decent operating system, allowing us to do just about everything that you previously needed a laptop for. Nokia did that already, except that their OS is deeply inferior. But on top of that Apple managed to create an exosphere of developers who continuously come up with brilliant little apps for every possible need. Want to tweet? Dozens of apps are available. Want to publish to your blog? Pick and choose. Not to mention everything else under the Sun, but that's another day and another blog post. My only nags are that Apple still need to work a bit on the phone, and are still in the crapcam phase. Which is why I now carry two devices around.
So there you are. I know this is a bit if a risk. Having said what I just committed to posterity means that I now have no excuse not to blog. So be it. Meanwhile, see you on Twitter!
-- Post From My iPod
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Another new advertising medium: Sailboards
If you think the online space has a monopoly on additions to the ever-growing list of media, think again. Here come the Sailboards.
The world's fastest growing cities are all sitting on either rivers or harbours. A giant TV screen sailing back and forth is guaranteed to reach a massive audience. And let's face it, riverfront property is most expensive in the world, so purchase power guaranteed!
Not sure if this has been done before, but Shanghai is the first place where I've ever seen this.
Unstoppable
Coming back to Shanghai after a few months' absence always has the same effect: shock and awe. The building boom goes on and on, higher and higher and on an ever grander scale. Hardly have we gotten used to the 420m Jin Mao Tower's skyline domination, or next to it arises the world's tallest bottle opener, the 455m Shanghai World Financial Center.
Literally around the corner, the old Shanghai is still being demolished. Maybe the Bottle Opener will be joined by a Corkscrew? Don't say it out too loud. This is Shanghai, after all.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Back to the roots of Marketing
Siem Reap is doing well. The tourist trade is booming, hordes of Korean and Chinese tourists overrun the ancient temples of the Kingdom of Angkor. Everyone in the service industry is doing a brisk trade.
Take for instance the remorques, tiny taxis consisting of a two- or fourseater compartment pulled by a moped. Remorques are a bit of a commodity, they're all alike and your negotiation position as a tourist is good. A US Dollar will get you anywhere.
Except this one. This entrepreneur has discovered the value of advertising. If you make yourself heard, and shout just a little bit harder than the others, you will get more business and you can charge just a little bit more. We paid this gentlemen $3.
Next step is branding, of course. A transport tycoon in the making.
Germany funding minefields?
The Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) does good work, removing a lethal danger that still lurks in parts of Cambodia's civil war scarred soil.Too bad then that the Germans keep funding new minefields, according to this CMAC sign near Siem Reap. Or do they mean the opposite?
This grammatical minefield would've been funny, given a less deathly serious subject. Wonder how many of these signs can be found throughout Cambodia, and what effect they have on Germany's public image?
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Hello Kitty Unlimited
If you've ever visited Hello Kitty Hell then you know that the Hello Kitty Universe knows no bounds.Thanks to Hong Kong's MTR Corporation it now has an underground railway too. Complete with trains and uniforms.
Hong Kong respects global brands too
Welcome to Lamma Island, home to just about every Leading Hotel of the World:
Asia's continuing IP crisis
Ugliest skycraper. Ever.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Alien is Alien, and English is English...
Some like it French
Not a word of English in this little tableau. Still, it's in South Kensington. Or shall we say Quensington du Sud?English may dominate the business community. But from Sydney to London, French is the global language for the culinary world.
No fusion here...
Anglo-Japano-Greco-Thai fusion
From a distance it looks like your typical wood paneled English corner pub. Up close, it turns out to be a Thai restaurant. Design cues from ancient Greece (Ionic columns). And the name? "The Rising Sun."Not that there were any doubts that London is one of the most cosmopolitan cities on Earth. But this pushes the envelope.
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."
Scott McNealy's classic quote is now over 8 years old. But it turned out to be quite visionary. UK's largest credit bureau Experian seems to think so too. In this tube ad Experian tries to educate the English consumer to not only accept this fact of life, but to try to make the best of it too. "Our information affects your position in life," it seems to say. "Why not come and check it, and ensure it's up to date?"Quite the double-edged sword. One wonders if an ad like this would have the desired effect in other cultures as well. Would it work in, say, China? Somehow I doubt it.
Pottermania in action
Quick research in the London Underground, morning rush hour:1. One in two spend their tube time reading;
2. One in four readers reads Harry Potter.
By the looks of it J.K. Rowling's books are not only enjoying record sales, they're being read too. By adults.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Concrete scarcity: a blessing in disguise
Concrete has become scarce and expensive in Singapore, since Indonesia started blocking sand exports to the little city state. If you compare Singapore's brand new skyscrapers with the old ones, I'm not sure whether that's a curse, or a blessing.
And by the way, the quality you can get out of your Nokia N95's camera on a bright, sunny day is impressive...
High-tech endangers low-tech
Seen at Singapore General Hospital. Acupuncture is a venerable, 5000 years old medical technology; mobile phones a 50 year old communications tool.One wonders in what way handphones pose dangers for 'sensitive' acupuncture equipment. Have today's needles become electronic gadgets, coming a long way from the Bronze Age's sharpened stones? Or do loud conversations interfere with the serene atmosphere in which the needles are being applied?
Acupuncture is from Venus, handphones are from Mars.
Commercial email getting more threatening?
Guess those Webroot guys are used to dealing with spammers and other vermin. Bit of a cruel way to treat your customers, though. Wouldn't "Your subscription has expired" sound a bit more friendly, and less lethal?
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Sunset over the East Coast...
... and Moonrise over Suntec City:
You see too few of these pictures around. It leads one to believe that Singaporeans value their own cityscape too little. The fact that the Government has to put pressure on developers to build landmark buildings speaks volumes. And yes, we are starting to cherish our conservation bungalows and shophouses, but they're still being razed and mutilated by the dozen.
Thirty years from now, the next generation will start to regret what happened even today.Fortunately the tide has turned. Too slow, as always, but already visible in places, such as Blair Road, the street where I live.
Hopefully, as the old becomes scarce, we'll start to cherish the new as well.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Relaxing Singapore
This is new. By this I don't mean the picture, taken at One15, the new yacht club and marina at Sentosa, but the title of this post. Singapore has made it, it's not only about living to work any more. We now work to live. But Singapore wouldn't be Singapore if 'working to live' would not be made into a business itself. So now we build marinas, casinos, and resorts. By the dozen.
Bustling Singapore
The old and the new. But looks deceive. Capital Tower looks new, Ann Siang Hill's shophouses in the foreground old. Reality is, Capital Tower is occupied by old-style financial institutions. Ann Siang Hill is the home of up-and-coming interactive advertising agencies, and internet startups.
The Age of the Internet has arrived. Books have become decorations
Remember books? You know, the stuff we used to read when they still had paper? Well, they've completely done up the new food court at Suntec with them. How quaint.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Do Not Disturb
Interesting post from Jan Chipchase on Future Perfect. Hutch in India apparently offers a blanket opt out for sending commercial text messages through to your phone.Jan frets about the 72 hours before the block will be in place, and the unspecified time it will take for Hutch's marketing clients to comply.
If Hutch gets this right (that's a big if), client compliance should not be a problem. Mobile providers, after all, are known for 'keeping the keys to the Kingdom', allowing their customers access only to those bits of cyberspace they make money off, and generally blocking the kind of progress we've seen on the wider Internet. But that should work both ways.
The flip side of the medal is the provider's responsibility to shield their customers from unwanted communications. Either accept that responsibility, or take you hands off the whole thing and let your subscribers roam freely across the Web.
Unfortunately this logic does not appeal to telcos, judging by their initial reactions in last year's mTouche scandal in Singapore.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
"Sorry Officer - I was just praying for free parking"
The best excuse for not getting a parking ticket in Singapore - ever.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Still life with presentation materials, anno 2007
Typical shot during a 21st century presentation. Presenter brought a laptop, a projector, and speakers. The quaint, authentic 20th century whiteboard stays unused in the corner.Wonder how this tableau will look in another 20 years...
Thursday, June 21, 2007
France, count your blessings
French Governments have a tendency to keep whining about the French language being endangered by globalisation, even to the extent that official words have been proclaimed for new media, to counteract English.
This picture was taken in an Australian pub, on a street corner in The Rocks, the fashionable downtown Sydney neighbourhood. As Ozzie as it gets, with bitters and ales and rugby on the TV screen in the corner. And the word 'BRASSERIE' in bold letters on the age-old ceiling beams.
Who says only the English contribute to the global Lingua Franca?
Cultural crossroads
The quintessential Flower Power Volkswagen Van, sitting along a road in New South Wales. In the sixties you'd just know who drove this: bandana'ed, pot smoking hippies with guitars and flowers in their hair.Forty years on, Flower Power is over. Free lifestyles have become multiple lifestyles. People are so much more difficult to pinpoint. Who owns this van? A poor guy who lives in it? A well-off collector, with a sprawling place in Watson Bay and a sentimental yearning to his student days? Australian gypsies, if these exist?
And what's the wilting flower garden doing up there? Is it a remnant of the Flower Power days, or is the owner just trying to make his vehicle carbon neutral?
Lifestyles are fragmenting. Every crossroad has become a cultural crossroad.
Commercial overload
Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Just another view, waiting for the shuttle train between the main terminals. Literally every surface is covered with advertising messages, some of them static, some of them dynamic. Dynamic means you see another message every few seconds. So in this shot you see ten messages, or fifteen, or twenty, depending on how long you're looking. And my camera phone doesn't cover as wide an angle as my eyes.
Every day we receive around 3,000 commercial messages. On paper and packaging, TVs and radios, posters and billboards, interior walls and the sides of buildings. On websites when we surf, in our webmail if we use the free variant, even when we're playing games.
Meanwhile, we keep hearing that we need to relinquish some of our privacy in order to help marketers increase their accuracy in targeting. My answer: fine, if you have to, but for chrissake show me some results!
How long until we all succumb to information overload?
Monday, May 01, 2006
QR codes conquering Asia by accident?
QR codes are continuing their progress through Asia. Japan has been converted for a while, and recently Taiwan got added to the response efficiency crowd.
Some additions happen by accident, it seems: Vodaphone just introduced a QR capable phone in the Philippines. It looks like an accidental launch, however, since it's one of Toshiba's Japanese phones, with QR readiness buried deep in the mostly Japanese-language manual.
But Philippino marketers, don't be deterred by this: you've got the tools now, so starting using them!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Birth of a new advertising medium
Of course this was unavoidable. Google Earth makes viewing the Earth's surface from above so easy that it becomes an advertising medium.
Only the scale of this (75-by-110ft) is a bit disappointing. C'mon guys - you Americans can do better than this. I'm thinking a few square miles of coloured sand in the Nevada Desert here - in the shape of a roulette wheel, of course.
The Emirates pioneered the idea, with the Palm Islands. Who follows? Giant Olympic Rings circling the mountain tops around the Great Wall?
Plus, we need a descriptor. Earthboards? Adscapes? We're open for suggestions.
If Business Class becomes more business-like, what about Cattle Class?
For years we've been drooling now over proposals from aircraft builders and their interior design suppliers, promising us dramatic improvements in on-board space and luxury. (See Goodbye to Red-eyes, say hello to Dreamers and Beemers and As we're expecting turbulence, may we request passengers to leave the bar, restaurant, sauna and fitness club and return to their seats?)
But this one seems to go the other way: a NY Times article about standing-room-only "economy class seats" (free registration required). Looks like Cattle Class is becoming an increasingly apt descriptor.
Of course we should've known: all that extra space in Business and First in the future has to come from somewhere. And there's no such thing as a free lunch. At least, not in the Economy Class of the future.
Airbus, the NY Times reports, is working on a proposal in which passengers in the standing section would be propped against a padded backboard, held in place with a harness. "To call it a seat would be misleading," said Volker Mellert, a physics professor at Oldenburg University in Germany, who has done research on airline seat comfort and has seen the design. No kidding.
Fortunately all of this is still on the drawing boards. But even current cattle class is getting more cramped as we blog, as new materials allow thinner seat backs that still fulfil strict safety regulations. Originally these seats were introduced under the motto "More Room Throughout Coach", but cost cutting measures put an end to that. Seats have been slid together and the campaign has quietly been withdrawn.
Anyway, let's hope it won't come to The Onion's take on Air India's Untouchable Coach Class, 'which is towed behind Air India jetliners in a giant burlap sack.'
Air rage pandemic on its way
Airbus subsidiary OnAir announced plans to release a GSM network for making and receiving calls on board of airliners. TAP and Air France have signed up to the service, to start operations in 2007.
Not sure if this is a good idea. For starters, I don't like the grin on the guy's face in the publicity photo. Neither does the girl next to him, it seems.
Monday, April 24, 2006
"Comrade Hu, instead of jailing human rights activists, why don't we let them hold Tupperware parties?"
Everybody who has followed the news around Google's, Yahoo's, and more recently, Skype's activities in China knows it: people who think they can publish freely are bound to get into trouble. Big trouble. Off-limits subjects cover a wide range: democracy, human rights, Falun Gong. And indecent material, of course.Unless you're doing it for commercial purposes, that is. Real estate developers in Shanghai enlist models wearing body paint and very little else to sell apartments, a Changchun fish restaurant pins menus to its waitresses breasts so patrons have an excuse to ogle them, and Hooters' first China branch is doing brisk business.
On more than one occasion censorship in China has used porn as an excuse to block foreign websites. This farce was effectively undone when the Washington Post and other media obtained a list of keywords for filtering web content that didn't contain any type of indecent expression (apart from the quite intriguing "Hire a killer to murder one's wife").
It now seems this chink in the armour has been picked up with gusto by China's ever-entrepreneurial commercial sector. Another sign that commercial interests are driving significant change in China's society, despite the fact that commerce and politics are being kept strictly separated.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Carrefour means "you're toast" in Chinese
For years Western governments and companies alike have lambasted China for its lack of protection of -mainly Western- brand names, resulting in rampant piracy. If you've ever set one foot on Shanghai's Nanjing Road or Beijing's Wangfujing Avenue, you know how ubiquitous and easy to obtain fake goods are in China, from $10 Rolex watches to $5 Louis Vuitton bags and Hermès scarves.Even with new brand protection laws in place (a condition for China's much-desired WTO membership) suing sellers of fake goods is nigh impossible, as most of these are fly-by-night operations and the Chinese judicial system isn't the most efficient in the world either.
So it's good to see that finally luxury brand maker Louis Vuitton has succeeded in getting a favourable verdict against a seller of fake LV branded handbags, getting awarded Y300,000 (US$40,000) in damages from ... French supermarket chain Carrefour.
Turns out, roadside sellers of gazillions of fake watches, handbags and scarves are untouchable in China. But a global retail chain with 37 fake LV bags on the shelves of its Shanghai hypermarket is an easy target.
As the old Chinese saying goes: life ain't always fair for a sitting duck.
Google discovering Chinese word for 'minefield'
Google's Chinese search engine wasn't born under a lucky star, it seems. First we had the brouhaha over Google's conformity to Chinese censorship (see Suggested new motto: "Don't Be Hypocrites", Brin to blogosphere: "Forget about Don't Be Evil. We're now going for Do Be Practical", OK. Who ordered the 'Google #1 Hypocrite' mugs? and "No, we're not evil. And we don't want to talk about it"); and now Google's recently unveiled Chinese name has attracted the scorn of its Chinese user base.
'Gu Ge' are the newly chosen Chinese characters, which means as much as 'Valley Song' or 'Harvest Song', and they have undoubtedly been chosen for their combinination of sound similarity with 'Google', and a positive meaning.
Choosing a Chinese name for your brand is a tricky game, much like navigating a minefield. A cause célèbre are Coca-Cola's early Chinese years, during which it was marketed under four characters with the correct Ko-Ka-Ko-La sound, that unfortunately meant something like Bite Your Wax Tadpole. The story goes that the name had been chosen by a Cantonese-speaking secretary in Coca-Cola's Guangzhou head office, who had no idea what was at stake.
Sinds the early 90s Coca-Cola in China is known as 'Ke Kou Ke Le', which is a pun on 'Tasteful Soft Drink' and 'Happy Tasting Drink' respectively. 'Ke Le' has even become the Chinese word for 'soft drink'.
Over to Google, whose advisers must've been keen on avoiding a blooper like this. But alas, a minefield has many mines. 'Valley Song' doesn't only sound rural in English, but also in Chinese. Which is decidedly uncool in the eyes of Chinese digerati, who populate the glass and steel canyons of Beijing's and Shanghai's business district and do not like to be reminded of the undeveloped, uncivilized and utterly poor agricultural hinterland that still takes up most of China.
Unhappy Chinese Google fans have even set up an online petition under the unambiguous name NoGuGe.com, where thousands of signatures have been collected since its inception last Wednesday. Google should be cool, and 'Gu Ge' doesn't cut it.
Doing business in China ain't easy.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
"Rolex: the men's watch women prefer"
Rolex, the company that practically invented wristwatch marketing a couple of decades ago, has since studiously ignored just about every trend in watch land. The model lineup, with legendary models like the Daytona chronograph, the Sea Dweller diver's watch, and the President gentleman's watch, has remained basically the same during the last, say, 40 years or so.
The most eye catching trend in watches is their increase in size: whereas average men's watches used to measure typically 30-35mm in diameter 15 years ago, 40-45mm is now the norm. Women's wristwatches grew from 20-25mm to 30-35mm.
Apparently this is starting to become a problem for Rolex. So what do you do in such a situation? Either one of two things:
- Redesign your complete model range (expensive and risky); or
- Tell the world that your 30-35mm men's watches are actually women's watches (brilliant and cheap).
"Leave the tomatoes. Take the Da Vinci QR Code T-shirt"
Yesterday Taiwanese mobile operator Far Eastone Telecommunications (FET) unveiled its first QR code capable handset, the Sharp WX-T91.Funny enough, of all the possible examples how QR codes can be used, FET chose the ability for consumers in supermarkets to do a background check on tomatoes. It's not the first I'd personally think of, but fortunately printing the codes in magazine ads and on outdoor posters and billboards for generated spectacularly efficient consumer responses get a mention as well.
FET will launch the QR code phone with a marketing campaign linked to the Da Vinci Code. Customers who sign up for a contract including the Sharp WX-T91 will be able to participate in a treasure hunt, with prizes like a luxury Da Vinci Code trip to France for two, movie tickets, or goodies with 'Da Vinci Code Classic Paintings' printed on them.
FET claims that QR is the emerging standard for mobile response in Taiwan, which makes it the second QR market after Japan, where QR codes are taking off in a big way with tens of millions of handsets already QR capable.The third market could be Singapore, where Sistic, the ticket agent responsible for about 80% of theater and concert ticket sales in the island state, has announced the intention to move to a completely QR based ticket sales solution.
With numerous technologies for mobile response evolving all over the globe (here's a small list) it's still early days to claim victory for QR.
But de facto standards are all-important for consumer acceptance, and it certainly looks like QR is a serious contender.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Of course we have ways to make you participate in our survey
Shame on you, United States: China has just issued an official methodology for collecting e-commerce statistics, claiming to be the first country to do so.The methods have first been put to use in the 2004-2005 China E-Commerce Report, a survey that covers 6 industry sectors across all of China's 31 provinces. Being the first major country where such a reporting standard is implemented may sound impressive, although China probably has a better starting position than others in enforcing compliance.
Still, it's a major achievement and an example that deserves following. Both the report and the claim come on the back of recent reports that the number of Chinese internet users has surpassed that of the US, possibly even by 50 million.
Should the United States start to worry? Only when the Chinese come up with an equivalent of Silicon Valley as well, I guess. Forbidden Silicon City, perhaps?
Monday, April 17, 2006
Doctor, I keep hearing these voices. Is something wrong with me?
Things are really starting to happen in the outdoor advertising space. Change was in the air, considering the number of new technologies that can make posters interactive:
- Bluecasting, Hypertag, and others: installing a small Bluetooth server that interacts with passers-by's mobile phones;
- QR codes: printing two-dimensional barcodes on a poster or ad that can interact with camera phones;
- Colorzip: same as QR codes, except that the interactive patterns can be 'hidden' in coloured pictures;
- AdRunner: a system for mobile media on taxis or buses that adapts the message according to the surrounding demographics, with help of GPS and a mobile phone network;
- Embedding RFID chips that can interact with RFID carrying passers-by;
- And many others, as startups around the world race to provide the market with the killer targeting app that will give us the next Google. Speaking of which, I wouldn't be surprised if Google itself wouldn't make a move into this space, given the richness of their data and the fact that they don't shy away from going into radio advertising either.
Mainstream media are picking up on this trend, too, judging from a very informative article in this week's Time Magazine, and an article in Planet MultiMedia about AdRunner (Dutch language) last Friday.
As is pretty much the fashion in articles about this subject, it closes off with "Pretty cool stuff — and maybe just a little scary." Scaremongering? Well, it does tell you that there's a touchy nerve among consumers that can easily turn into antagonism and damage responsiveness after the newness has worn off - call it the Minority Report effect.
But these are fascinating techniques, and it would be a pity if the opportunity to better target and lower annoyance levels in this advertising-soaked world would be spoiled by privacy scares.For that reason perhaps it's better to stick to techniques that leave the initiative with the consumer. QR and Colorzip codes leave it up to the consumer to point his or her camera at the ad and click to download the information in the code, rather than suddenly finding something's going on in your phone and wondering where the Hell it's come from. And what about the Seattle experiment in which storefront loudspeakers start blaring personalized messages when you pass by? Creepy...
To be continued.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
'Synovative' approach to market research
More news from the marketing frontlines in Singapore: here's the outcome of a small war between two of Singapore's, erm, "No. 1" society magazines.
Singapore Tatler claimed the title in a brochure calling itself "the best magazine for advertising" compared to Prestige and The Peak, its two nearest competitors. Tatler based its claims on research by Synovate, a global market research firm.
Both competitors sued. The Peak settled out of court last December, but Prestige pressed on. And after six embarassing days in court, Tatler threw in the towel. Total damage: S$300,000 (about US$200k), as Tatler will pay Prestige's legal costs as well.
Turns out, Synovate's research was conducted only among people attending Tatler's events. Synovate, that touts itself as one of the world's top global market research firms, should be the most embarassed party here. To conduct an exit survey at Tatler's events and report the results is one thing. But to actually use these results to corroborate claims about your market position (Synovate actually vetted the brochure and wrote the introductory letter!) is something else indeed.
Should future dictionary makers need a clear example for the lemma 'bias', this looks like a good place to start...
(Source: The Straits Times)
Mobile spam in Singapore: $150,000 fine
Singapore has its way of sending signals to the business community. Fining a small firm S$150,000 is one of them.
It all started on Chinese New Year, when MyGlobalFun, a Chinese client of mobile services provider mTouche sent 300,000 MMS New Year Greetings to mTouche's subscriber database. That's a privacy violation in itself, but things went rapidly downhill two weeks later, when $1 charges started to appear on the recipients' phone bills.
MyGlobalFun's messages were not intended to be free, as it turned out. Protests were rife and after angry letters started to appear in the newspaper, the local telcos (SingTel, M1 and StarHub) quickly reversed the charges. But on February 21st mTouche was slapped with a six-month suspension to conduct business in Singapore, and now there's also the S$150,000 (around US$100k) fine.
Meanwhile, fly-by-night operation MyGlobalFun has disappeared from the radar screen as quickly as it turned up. And the phone number list circulates somewhere in China.
Singaporean subscribers don't need to be too worried, though. The IDA (InfoCommm Development Authority of Singapore) has warned the telcos to prevent illegitime billing via their monthly statements in the future. Trust me, they'll all remember mTouche.
(Source: The Straits Times)
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