Monday, 24 January 2011

Smart Phones and Smart Brands

Today making phone calls is only one small part of what we use our mobiles for, and for many customers nowhere near the most important. It’s becoming almost impossible for us to put our mobile devices down as we move seamlessly from one task to another via their bewitching touch sensitive screens.

Check these built in gems alone: IMS, MMS, email, IVP(voice), mobile web, internet and Bluetooth. On top of that applications (pre-loaded and down-loadable) allow us to turn it into a clock, a games console, a diary, a journey planner etc…the list of apps grows by the day.

There are clear message here for the smart marketer – whether we’re talking smart phone or iPad these devices are pivotal to your customers life styles, so get on board, put your brand in that space and reap the rewards.

To demonstrate a point, the latest news is that following a successful trial, all Starbucks customers in the US will soon be able to pay for their coffee using their smart phone.

We work with many clients to keep them at the forefront of changes in digital and direct marketing , if you’d like to know more, give us a call.

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Wednesday, 19 January 2011

The right man for the job?

Undoubtedly one of the biggest news stories of the week, Ricky Gervais’ performance as host of the Golden Globes drew a mix of scathing reviews and high praise from commentators worldwide. Some described his cracks at celebrities such as Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr as ‘tasteless’ and ‘unacceptable’. Others relished in Gervais’ controversial performance, and commended him for ‘not holding back’.

But what about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that hired Gervais in the first place? Initial reports suggested they were not impressed. But they later released a statement saying they were happy with his performance – “We loved the show. It was a lot of fun and obviously has a lot of people talking.”

The HFPA must have had a lot to think about after the awards. On the one hand, early numbers showed the 2011 Globes reaching its biggest audience—just under 17 million viewers, up 5% from last year. The Gervais factor had certainly got people watching.

On the other, some very big Hollywood players were nursing some very bruised egos after the event. Including the HFPA president himself, who was also the subject of one of Gervais’ on air jibes.

It demonstrates perfectly the gambles a brand takes when they employ a notorious risk-taker like Gervais to publicly front their cause. The HFPA must have known what they were getting themselves in for, but ultimately had no control over what was to take place on the night.

 Gervais’ performance however, was right on brand for him. His ‘screw Hollywood’ attitude is now firmly entrenched – and this is obviously the way he wants people to think of him.

It’s a warning to marketers everywhere that when you get personality endorsement, you are essentially getting one brand (a personal brand with its own values, tone and attributes) to support your brand. Get the mix wrong and the results can be explosive.  

If you’d like to talk to us about your brand and communication challenges, we’d be delighted to hear from you, why not give us a call.

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Friday, 14 January 2011

He said, she said.

The gang at Google have long been amazing the world with their quest to provide free access to as much of the worlds information as they possibly can. From Google Earth, to Google Search and Google everything in-between, their work has been amazing (just check out Google Labs to see what else is on the boiler..).

For a while now, Google has been indexing books from around the world, digging up some of the oldest books in existence,  scanning them, converting them to text, and making them available (licence permitting) via Google Books. An outcome of this is a database of practically every word ever published sitting on a database in Googleland, just waiting for someone to find an interesting use for them.

Enter nGrams from Google. This very interesting tool can show you the popularity of any word, or string of words published in almost any book for the past 200 years. And yes, any word (all the good ones are there too!). This led Chris Harrison, a graduate student in engineering at Carnegie Mellon in the US, to develop the above graph to show exactly what She said, and what He said – in literary sense anyway, for the past 200 years.

He analysed all text strings that began with He and She, and developed the ultimate battle of the sexes. The most popular? Both He and She were followed with “is a” more times than every other combination in history, but a closer look also shows that “He argues” whilst “She loves” really does show that Mars and Venus may be our respective homes after all.

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Wednesday, 12 January 2011

Working for all Australians

The Australian 20 cent piece. Whether you love the image of the playful platypus or you hate carrying around another giant piece of metal, there is new reason to pay attention to it.

The Australian Taxation Office celebrated its 100th year in 2010. And what better way than making a new coin for 2010 (and taxing us for it).

Apparently someone, somewhere, celebrated this monumental occasion.

‘The coin reflects the past journey, and acknowledges the future role of taxation in our community.’  Yeaaaaa whatever.

The great part is you can have this coin for only $1.75 and mailed to your door for a low shipping price of $1. You could go all out and get the extra shiny royal mint coin which can be purchased for $20 (valued at 20 cents).

Or just wait until you’re lucky enough to receive this piece of history as change.

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Monday, 10 January 2011

Polaroid cool?

Not anymore, most would argue but Lady Gaga begs to differ given she is now on board as creative director. Not content to be merely the face of Polaroid, she insisted upon being heavily involved in development and design of their specialty range known as the grey label.

At a recent media conference, she unveiled three new products which include camera glasses, an instant digital camera and a portable printer.

Lady Gaga is certainly not the first celebrity to be bought on board to reinvigorate brands considered dated and redundant. It will however be interesting to see if this unlikely pairing of celebrity and technology, and fusion of innovation and fashion can give new life to Polaroid.

Will they be able to reengage consumers who previously owned a Polaroid camera and then lost interest? Or will their success lie predominantly with the younger generation whose purchasing habits are influenced by celebrity?

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