21/02/10
Posted in Marketing, Mobility, The real world | 1 Comment » 
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Ubiquitous technology, long battery life, known interface, touch sensitive, highly customizable, plug and play, speech recognition, interoperable and above all mobile.
13/02/10
Posted in Apple, Marketing | No Comments » Tweet This Post
@albertcuesta tweets about this promotion (the “Promotion”) by Apple celebrating the 10 billionth download from iTunes (note that this doesn’t mean purchases).
iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and albums available for download, day or night. Seven years later, we’re about to celebrate our biggest milestone for music, yet — 10 billion songs downloaded. Buy a song, and if it’s the 10 billionth download, you could win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. It’s our way of saying thanks.
21/09/08
Posted in Marketing, Mobility, The real world, Web 2.0 | 3 Comments » Tweet This Post
I just came from my small town’s antique street marquet where I saw a cool 70s jump-hour watch exactly like this one, except for the brand. The one I saw had the Sears brand on it.
At the stall, after checking that it still worked, I asked the price. It started at 70 €, dropped to 65 without asking and after a while it was already 50 €.
It wasn’t obviously new, a few scratches and wear here and there but the overall condition was good. While I was still thinking it over, it came to my mind that I could Google for it on the iPhone and check some background data about the model. Read the rest of this entry »
20/01/08
Posted in Advertising, Marketing, The real world | No Comments » Tweet This Post
Via boingboing.net I land on an article in Advertising Age about McDonald’s and sick school sponsoring in Florida.
In December 2007, McDonald’s had agreed to sponsor the report-card jackets for the county’s elementary schools (27.000 children) to cover the printing expenses of $1,600.
In exchange the report jackets would carry coupons redeemable in any McDonald’s restaurant, so any student with all A’s and B’s, two or fewer absences, or good behavior in a given academic quarter would be given a free happy meal.
Is this a sort of equal-fat-rights for the more gifted students? As we all know (and so does McDonald’s) there’s a correlation between education level and fast food consumption, so when they grow up, the A students wont be eating as many Bic Macs as the F students. “We’d better get them while they’re still don’t have an education”, must have thought Ronald McDonald.
After more than 2.000 complaints from enraged parents, McDonald’s decided to cancel the campaign. An end to the story that will no doubt make Naomi Klein and Morgan Spurlock happy.
20/11/07
Posted in Advertising, Apple, Marketing, Music, Radio | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post
A few weeks ago we got iTunes on the iPhone so we can download any song we want over the air. Kewl!
I bet the Adbusters guys must be really happy with this impulse purchase temptation right on the palm of our hand!
But it doesn’t stop here. A while ago there were some rumors about iTunes booths on Starbucks so customers could download via WiFi their favorite songs. Well it got actually way better (or worse) than that. Consider the following scenario:
You’re sitting in a Starbucks and you hear a song. You fire up your iTunes app on your laptop or on your iPhone and “boom” there comes the artwork for the current song plus the ten previous ones. One click or one tap and the song is yours forever (and your dollar is Apple’s).
Check Apple’s info on the matter.
The system could be generalized to any web based radio station or broadcasting platform for the matter opening new marketing opportunities in the music distribution arena. I bet Steve is on the job already.
Bonus 1: here’s the longest Starbucks order: Double Ristretto Venti Nonfat Organic Chocolate Brownie Frappuccino Extra Hot with Foam and Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended
Via Laughing Meme
Bonus 2: You get free WiFi if you own an iPhone or a laptop with iTunes.
14/11/07
Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Web 2.0 | 2 Comments » Tweet This Post
Imagine an advertising world where… spending on interactive, one-to-one advertising formats surpasses traditional, one-to-many advertising vehicles, and a significant share of ad space is sold through auctions and exchanges. Advertisers know who viewed and acted on an ad, and pay based on real impact rather than estimated “impressions.†Consumers self-select which ads they watch and share preferred ads with peers. User-generated advertising is as prevalent (and appealing) as agency-created spots.
Based on IBM global surveys of more than 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising experts, we see four change drivers shifting control within the industry.
A hint: IBM’s articles in the Press Room have links to post to digg and to del.icio.us. Times are-a-changing.
Link to IBM Press room – 2007-11-08 IBM Predicts the End of Advertising as We Know It – United States
Direct link to The End of Adverstising as We Know Iit PDF
25/02/07
Posted in Advertising, Marketing | 2 Comments » Tweet This Post
Not too long ago people working in advertising were considered to be creative. But that was before agencies discovered internet. It took them a long while but it looks that they’ve learned the lesson: creative people don’t necessarily wear designer’s clothes, have studios in the trendiest areas in town or work in the advertising industry. Creative people come in all shapes and colors and have the web as a common playground.
So in this internet time, if you want to bluff your way in the advertising industry you just have to find good ideas online before others do, stamp your flashy corporate logo on them and sell them to a big brand. Ideas are important but if they’re for free and you get payed a large sum for them even more.
Three TV commercials that are currently on Spanish TV will prove my point.
Volkswagen Polo copies Kyle McDonald’s story
Kyle McDonald started by trading a red paper clip online for anything. The goal was to get a house in one year. After 14 transactions including a role in a Hollywood movie he got his house.
Volkswagen creates a TV campaign with the same concept (although they’re honest about telling Kyle’s story) and launch a blog written by Kyle. It looks like Kyle is blogging in perfect Spanish and encouraging people to trade stuff to get a Volskwagen Polo. Neat.
Audi copies Brazilian roller
A couple of months ago I saw an amazing video of a Brazilian guy rolling down a long street hitting an endless row of water filled glass bottles tuned to different notes resulting in Mozart’s Symphony n.40.
Obviously Audi’s agency liked it and ripped it off without any problem. I hope I’m wrong and that guy got payed for the idea but I doubt it.
Watch the original idea
Watch the copy
ONO copies the Free Hughs campaign
It all started when Juan Mann got back to his native Australia after a time in London and nobody was there to hug him. He decided to write a sign with the words “Free Hughs” and hug anyone that wanted it. He later created the website freehugscampaign.org and people all over the world started to organize free hugs gatherings.
Again a smart creative saw potential and blatantly turned something spontaneous and non-commercial as Juan Mann’s initiative, into a TV commercial for the ONO telecom. By the way, at the beginning of the original free hugs video you can see a Vodafone shop in the background.
Watch the original idea
Watch the copy
There are probably more examples but I guess I should watch more TV to spot them.
11/01/07
Posted in Apple, Interface, Marketing, Usability, Why didn't I think of that? | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post
I wonder if there’s still anyone who doesn’t know about the new iPhone (reinventing the phone) from Apple. It was presented a couple of days ago (blogged life by engadget), it hit frontpages and every news bulletin yesterday and today Cisco is claiming that they had a trade mark on the name iPhone.
Apple will problably settle for the name Apple Phone, after paying a million dollar to Cisco and getting billion dollar free PR campaign after all the fuss. Something similar happened with the Apple Records settlement where the Beatles owned record company sued Apple when Jobs decided to move into the music business.
I don’t think Steve Jobs has any problem changing the name iPhone by Apple Phone. They recently changed the TV set top box from iTV to AppleTV and Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc.
And for those of us who can’t wait till the iPhone comes out here’s how to get one downloadable version right away.
23/07/06
Posted in Marketing, Web 2.0 | No Comments » Tweet This Post
Do you really understand what Web 2.0 is about? Watch this video and you’ll be ready to launch your Web 2.0 startup.
A while ago I posted some suggestions on how to build your own Web 2.0 website. In this video the makers of Reddit take a step further and give a lecture on how to start your own Web 2.0 company.
And by the way, the video is not on YouTube yet. Or at least not properly tagged.
Watch the Ingredients for Web 2.0 success video
12/06/06
Posted in Barcelona, Design, Interface, Marketing | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post
I’ve just seen on TV the ad for terminalb.org, the self procclaimed “public domain database of design, architecture, image and advertising creativity in Barcelona” created by the ADG-FAD from Barcelona, build by Double You and publicly funded.
I went there and I was astonished to see the implementation of the site. It made me think of the things you shouldn’t do in a project like this.
Why just accept the self called creative people from Barcelona? Accept people from all over the world and let them give their procedence. You’ll have much better data and still have the creative people from Barcelona.
Why use flash to create hyperlinks when there are already HTML hyperlinks? Why hide URLs? Why break the page navigation? Why render the browser’s backbutton (the most used button in a browser) useless? Why render cut & paste useless? Why hide from Google? Do I need to go on?
This approach to the web was wrong since Flash was used for other than animation many years ago. Even more so in 2006.
Another relic of the past that still bugs users. As a rule of thumb: you see a loading page, hit the back button and go somwhere else.
Don’t make users tell you twice the language they speak. They’re already telling you with their browser’s language so why ask them in the first screen? (After the loading!)
A database where you sign-in to and post your profile to get in touch with people with your same interests? Sounds like a social network, doesn’t it?
Don’t make the user learn how the interface works at every click. Don’t design just for fun or just to impress your customer. Impress the user by sticking to standards.
Why still follow the fad of small fonts which can’t be enlarged according to the user’s browser settings? Probably short-sighted people can’t be creative so why bother.
People want data, but you are convinced they’re wrong and insist on showing the same slow animation every time they try to access some contents.
If you’re a member of a social network you’re most probably interested on who joins in. You probably would like to subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up with new memberships.
Using the .org domain won’t make you cooler or more web 2.0ish just because every cool project in the web 2.0 is open source and uses a .org domain. If your website sucks hiding behind a .org only makes things worse.
There are already many social software networks. Linkedin, Openbc or MySpace. It’s already there and with a user base of millions. Probably many of the people in terminalb.org are already on some other social network.
Or maybe not if they’ve ever used a real social network.
Worst of all is that we’re all paying for this as the Catalan Goverment is sponsoring this project that gets nowhere near other free, open-source, peer2peer, social networks. Had they consulted me I could have made big money just pointing them to MySpace.com. They would have got a much better service and probably for half the price.
See it for yourself at http://www.terminalb.org
