MARKETING SAUCE

Pricing Pandemonium - Great for SMEs, bad for brands?

The trend known as pricing pandemonium is changing the landscape. And love them or hate them deals-based programmes are changing the way that people interact with businesses, particularly SMEs. In so doing they are changing the very nature of programmes that we marketers are required to design. A number of clients have asked "what's are Groupon strategy" lately! I also thought this recent effort by Kogan is also a nice example of this trend at play.

In a not so unrelated twist, I was also stunned recently to read that contrary to my perception, email effectiveness is actually improving. In the latest Vision 6 survey (2H 2010), clickthrough rates are up (c.6%), open rates are up (c.25%), and bounce rates are the lowest in four years. Clearly this is as a result of better hygiene in terms of data - marketers getting the basics rights. But I also wonder if the hammering my inbox gets from a new breed of email marketer has anything to do with this?

Certainly the volumes that the likes of Spreets and Cudo and Living Social are driving, adds a load to the overall send volumes. Check out the data points below (via digitalmarketinglab ). And then multiply by 30 for a monthly number - I'd estimate 120M messages a month - it's significant. Another reference to this trend here.

 

So for SMEs do these sites offer a good alternative to the historically strong channels of Yellow Pages, Local Papers, or entities like the Entertainment Book, or indeed their own newer email or social media initiatives? I'm trying to look beyond the hype (both positive and negative). I'll check-in on this again.

And what about brands? Does pricing pandemonium offer an opportunity for them? Or does it represent the "large scale strip-mining of brand values" as my colleague Craig Davis ponders?

I'm thinking on it. Anyone got any suggestions or evidence?

 

 

Not so Splendid Foursquare result.

 

Duh a no brainer right? A gathering of thousands of savvy Gen Y over a three day period in a fun location  - surely a Foursquare love fest?

I was surprised to find not. Not really anyway.

Last time I asked 6 months ago, Foursquare were claiming 40,000 plus users in Australia - that's probably nearer 100K now. Foursquare (certainly ahead of last weeks announcement by Facebook - Facebook Places, and probably for some time yet to come) remains the MLBSNS of choice for Aussies. 

Now 30,000 people attended the event. How did Foursquare do? Well, Splendour achieved 716 checkins from 259 people.

Enough to have achieved a super swarm if it could have been co-ordinated, but nothing like the numbers I was anticipating.

I suspect it has something to do with coverage and battery life (an out of the way place), but certainly gave me food for thought. Foursquare is still (sadly) quite niche in Aus. Still we had some fun setting up a few specials for Splendour and Virgin Mobile.

Will you love me tomorrow?

Will you love me tomorrow? 10 03 10

View more presentations from Simon.

Pleasant morning in Brisbane chatting to 50 or so marketers on our views around marketing to the new customer. Thanks to Simone and Craig for their input and suggestions on this one.

Ready for iPad? What about Kindle?

 

A slew of new tablets and e-Books readers are due to hit this year, of course most notably the new Apple iPad. We’re lead to believe that 2010 is the year we really do finally start to say farewell to paper. There are plenty of skeptics on this one, a la “a paperless office is about as realistic as a paperless bathroom”– style thinking but we’ll see. I’m sure there will be plenty written about these topics (@granleese and @agreeves are no doubt already on the case).

 

But what of the Amazon Kindle, does it have anything to offer?

 

 

I was lucky enough to grab a Kindle shortly after they went on international sale in November last year. Two months, a dozen or so purchases and many free trial reads later, I feel ready to give some qualified opinion.

Out of the box (nice packaging, wonder where they got that iDea from?) I switched it on and was greeted by name: Simon’s Kindle. It’s pre configured to my Amazon account to provide an instant closed loop experience, somewhat akin to iTunes. The Kindle connects to the Amazon store over the mobile internet, so no need to ever hook it up to a computer (except via USB for charging, or if you want to drop PDFs - yes they are now supported - or Word Docs onto the device).

 

 

 

 

Questicon Makes use of QR

       

We recently spotted that Canberra's interactive science and technology centre Questicon is making use of QR codes to provide more information to browsers. It's especially relevant since QR codes are themselves a subject for one particular exhibit called Perception Deception.

This is an application that we've talked about a lot.

It's a great way of connecting to more detailed content providing the back story, if you will. It also means that users can walk away with referenceable content after the fact - very useful indeed.

However in this case I just felt that the reward just wasn't strong enough. That is, the experience didn't really add anything. I think when used in these situations QR must link to content that provides more value - greater utility or entertainment. Think video content, location-based tools, mobile vouchers and so on.

Nevertheless good on you Questicon for getting stuck in, and my kids really enjoyed the exhibit. This is a must visit attraction in Canberra if you have kids by the way.

Game Over for QR Codes? I think not.

I've been a huge fan of qr codes for ages now (no shit I hear you say, having taken a look down the page).
Being a direct marketing guy by trade I think this technology could be to the physical world what the link is to the internet. Its the notion of digital touching (and hopefully enhancing) the real world that tantalises. Whats also interesting is that response to codes is getting bigger and better by the day. I'm astounded that already QR codes can exceed SMS response when used in a direct response context.

So QR codes are a great direct response tool, they clearly make a promise of value 'on the other side'. And as the mobile internet continues to grow and get faster the experience will only increase in value. Plus, no more conversations about making the 0800 number or URL bigger in the ad.
These things stand put like the proverbial dogs bollocks (much to the chagrin of some Creative Directors).

In my day job I just posted some results from some of our QR campaigns - check them out if you're interested.

Learning for Pizza

I've always had a passion for pizza.

So I decided to build a pizza oven, and decided in the process it was a great opportunity to get to grips with Wordpress. So I found a theme I liked and installed it with Go Daddy, even got my hands dirty with PHP (not to mention lots of wonderful clay). What fun. Here's a video I made from the stills. Great pizza too - even if I do say so myself!

Here's the blog.

Portable Pizza Oven

When tech meets art.

I absolutely love this piece from the guys at Holler. Nuff said.

Time Bomb - Interactive Graffiti (StupidKrap & Holler) from Mike Hill on Vimeo.

A lot of application I think beyond the visual feast - particularly in the interactive out of home space.

Designer QR Codes - form AND function

I've been working recently on adding logos to QR codes, tweaking formatting and generally trying to 'push it' creatively with these fascinating pieces of technology.

No wonder then that this piece of work really caught my eye. A lot of debate on line as to whether this code can be read with most current QR code readers. Apparently in Japan, it's all good.

We've seen some very interesting results in Australia using QR codes, in some cases codes outperform SMS keyword response, despite having less than 10% of the active user base.

Why? IMO it's simply down to the fact that this is a responsive community - we're talking people who want to engage and interact with advertising.

Let face it, to the initiated QR codes scream a promise of content beyond.

Personally I think Loius Vuitton, Set japan.and Takashi Murakami have done a great job - certainly I can see the conversations with creative folk going much further now compared to the somewhat typical "Are you f(*^&ing kidding - I don't want that crossword puzzle anywhere near my beautiful ad"...

Quietly Confident About Mobile

Writing a presentation to a client who wants to get better at Recession Marketing.