Not having your ducks in a row

HP this week announce a product recall affecting over 15,000 laptop batteries in China. The news in itself is not unique, with Sony and Dell in the past having similar recalls.

However what is unique are lessons learnt from these previous incidents seem not to have been taken into consideration, with HP not having a press statement available about the impact and the reasoning for the recall above and beyond the recall itself.

The speed at which news now travels and the impact this can have through mis-information can be massive - handling these crisis's in a proactive controlled manner is essential.

Essential for the brand and essential for the operation of the business who no doubt will now be receiving a high volume of customer enquiries in relation to the news article.

Authenticity

teenage birth on playing field

"Leicester Teenage Pregnancy Partnership"

marketing.
Two great examples of how ' apparently ' real world events being captured by mobile phone unfolding in front of you results in both increased impact, an air of authenticity and also have created a buzz of nearly 4 million views combined through the online community.

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Context is everything.

marketing technology

The first is a recently banned by YouTube video of a school girl giving birth on the playing field. Using apparent mobile phone footage brings home that these events while exaggerated in terms of the location, are an occurrence affecting the young - association of the school and the mobile together to bring this context to life.

The second, an albeit more mainstream effort to convince us to part with our hard earned cash is a recent 'viral' showing that throwing a tantrum in a public place is actually rewarded, in this case with a nice new shiney car. I have to be honest, this is far less convincing - the ' laser ' eyes somewhat detract from the efforts to make this insitu occurance convincing, plus the car which is causing all of this is far from spectacular - even the colour is crap.

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marketing tech

Buick viral - even the colour is crap

Final waltz or Final laugh?

Reminder to all who use Wikipedia for reference.

A recent 'hoax' by an Irish student resulted in national newspapers (including the Guardian) using quotes from the Wikipedia article in relation to the the death of the composer Maurice Jarre, which were quite simply ' made up '.

The student expected some blog posts and online entries to use information from the online encyclopedia, but was surprised to see many nationals using quotes in the obituary for the french composer.

Previously I touched on this subject, again with an obituary for Anna Nicole Smith being edited by users, albeit this time with their own personal opinions of the Starlet. It again highlights the need for verification and cross reference when relying on the wisdom of the crowd.

"If we relied of consensus and the wisdom of the crowd, the world would be flat and we would be the centre of the solar system"

technology marketing

3D - no glasses required

It is thought that this year many movie production studios such as Dream Works will produce much of their output in 3D format for cinema. Already recent releases such as ' Monsters VS Aliens ' and the up and coming science fiction film from James Cameron ' Avatar ' indicates 2009 and 2010 will be the year 3D becomes more widely adopted.

Debuted in 2006 by Burton technologies their system which involves firing laser pulses at point in space to ionise the air ( thus creating a ball of plasma ) has been upgraded to increase the firing rate from 200 to 1000 ' flash-points ' per second - in effect increasing the resolution available.

In previous posts on 3D the technology involved has been to project images onto screens to give the illusion of 3D, however these recent advancements in laser technologies means true ' projected ' 3D images could be coming to a cinema ( or at the very least an advertising billboard ) near you pretty soon.


marketing technology
source : new scientist , delotte

The dating game

The total number of mobile web users grew past the total number of PC based

Internet users for the first time in 2008

Reuters reported this week Indian mobile operators added a record 15.64 million customers during March, taking mobile users for the region to close on 400 million people.

India’s vast geography and infrastructure means that the entry point for users to gain a mobile (in terms of cost) is far lower than obtaining traditional fixed line phone access.

The local mobile operators are trying to answer the same question as their Western counterparts:

How maximise their revenue from this vast consumer base over and above traditional voice SMS services?

With the added complication of a technology infrastructure that lags behind the investment’s made in the evolved markets such as the UK, the marketing folks have even less functionaility to try and entice customers to make more use of their handsets.

Internet Cafe’s are still expensive and also not really available outside the main towns and cities, so while data technologies such as GRPS and 3G are not available to the entire mobile community, mobile does offer a greater opportunity for users to engage with the web, albeit in a more limited fashion.

Smart

A number of ingenious operations have sprung up which use these hurdles as opportunities – one of which around the issue of 'dating' .

The process of arranged marriages in India is still a practise that survives today – however western influences means the younger generation are taking more control in the process, a generation who is embracing mobile.

Dating

While phone services cannot compete with the richness of the web, the ability to send pictures (MMS) make an ideal conduit for dating services to operate through.
In the UK operators tried to ‘ shoe horn ‘ web content onto the phone, in India they have appreciated the limitations of the device / geography / user community to deliver a blended service to users.

Press 1 for girlfriend

The successful services make use of a very familiar technology, DTMF – to you and me the ‘ choice ‘ selections we are given when we call our banks to press 1 to speak to an operator ( who incidentally is in India ). Users are given a number of questions and choices to guide them through the process of selecting an ideal partner, if you like dating by numbers.

Once at the end of the selection process they are sent a MMS with a link to the candidates. Only at the end is the technology of the phones media capabilities called upon.

Marketers are seeing real value and growth with this type of 'engagement' as quiet simply, it works. The combination of a familiar technology with the enhancements the mobile phone offers, even in this limited capacity just goes to show maybe the developed markets may not be that developed after all.

• India is second only to China with 600 million mobile users
• More than a billion new mobile phones are sold each year
• Mobile phone messaging (mostly SMS) is worth over 130 Billion dollars a year
• There are 3 billion unique mobile phone subscribers

sources : Reuters / http://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/page8.html