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Coming Tuesday (January 8th) Ronnie Overgoor and me will have Hans Hillen in PitchTalk (our weekly TV-talk on Het Gesprek). Hans is chairman of the Dutch Center for Brand and Communication and member of the Senate (Dutch Parliament). We will (try to) discuss the current status on restrictions on commercial communications that were brought up in 2007 and without a doubt will also show up in 2008. Advertising targeted at children should be banned. Commercials for loans, gambling games and paid phone lines (read: sex) should be banned… And so on. Whatever happened to Freedom of Commercial Speech? We will discuss this with Hans Hillen. I hope you will watch and please deliver input before coming Tuesday!
Dutch company Overtoom (sort of Office Depot) is back on radio with spots that still promote their claim on quickness. That’s simple consistent advertising. But now they’ve gone multichannel! In the spot a man can be heard asking for a ‘poeremetator’. This word doesn’t exist. Not even in Dutch… The story behind this is, that Overtoom wanted people (that listened to the spot that was on air in a high frequency) to Google the strange word. What you get is this: 89.100 hits at the moment of writing! Smart!
In the movie above – made possible by Verizon in order to sell their broadband products – me, myself and I are the hero. Oh, and some aliens also… By uploading a simple portrait (made by cellphone, on the fly) I was able to star in a self-assembled movie. Picking storylines, scripts, props and speech snippets, the movie was made for me. When done, I received a link to watch the movie. A nice example of personalization. Not by name, but by face. And yes, I can use a hairdo! But don’t you like the car? I wonder if Aston Martin paid for this in-script sponsoring…
I’m having problems with the following approach:
From ‘Reclaim Your Life: A Two-Week Challenge to Help You Regain Time’ by Stuart R. Levine
Consider the way new technologies come to market. The major software and electronics companies cut down on time and costs by putting products on the market before they’ve been completely debugged. Not only does this save the consumer money in the long run; consumer feedback teaches these companies more in a month than they’d discover through years of in-house testing. Sure, some users might grumble at flaws in the early models or releases. But by now, most consumers are aware of the practice and know to wait for the updated version.
This manifesto is available from ChangeThis.
My problem is the easy conclusion about on “some users that might grumble at flaws”. These early adopters are the ones that feed the companies with worthwhile feedback. In forums online. On ‘Company-X-sucks.com-websites’. At the callcenters etc. Based on this feedback the product/service is then updated. The calculating masses wait for this moment. But the engaged few that paid the big bucks are not ‘paid’ for their effort. In my opinion, they will eventually stop being this ‘helpful’ (read: exploited). Thus: no quick fixes, no updated products, no lower prices. And hence: no critical mass to make your profit on… Just a thought.
It seems a new trend: as products come and go, why should shops that sell products stay forever? One fresh example of a so-called ‘pop-up shop‘ is the 3 shops American candy-brand Altoid is launching just before Valentine’s day (February 14th). New York, Miami and Chicago will see shops that open doors especially for people who are sick and tired of the whole Valentine-circus. According to Springwise, not only the ‘pop-up shop’-trend is to be discovered here. In the shops guests can sample the newest Altiods-candy (Tryvertising). And the appeal to a collective disgust towards the über-commercialised Valentine-hype seems to tap into Sympvertising. Guess everything can be a trend…
With Kuler, Adobe Labs present a cool colorpicker-tool. Not only the tool itself is cool. The website it is presented on also: very Web 2.0… In fact: the website *is* the tool. The color-schemes you create here (or were created by others) can be downloaded as an Adobe Swatch Exchange-file. To be used in programs like Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. Kuler is bringen known color-schemers like Color Schemer Gallery and Daily Color Scheme to a new level. Also see here.
