All We Need Is Love and Marketing

Humor in Ads

2010-03-04T01:53:00.000-08:00

Jury is still out on humor in advertising. Sure every once in a while it is a lot of fun and people dig it. What remains unsure is its selling ability. Here is a good example when humor in ads is truly funny. Hapa sushi.

Super Efficient Re-Branding

2010-02-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

Sure, you can call it cheap or cheesy or whatever.

Let's just call it efficient or cost-efficient or super-efficient. All it took was a razor blade and an "A" plus"B".

I want to live in a Barclaycard commercial world

2010-02-11T04:03:00.000-08:00

This is a first for me. I literally want to reside in a make belief world that only exist in a TV commercial. I know it sounds cheesy, but who wouldn't want to commute using a rollercoaster?

Browser Manipulation for Acciona

2009-11-19T03:52:00.000-08:00

Good cause, good song, great execution. Campaign for Acciona, a sustainable development firm based in Spain. Song “Pure Imagination” (made famous by Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory). 80-second clip by director Marcel Burgos for McCann Erickson Italia. 1-2-3 punch.

http://www.youtube.com/experiencere

I'm not sure how they did it, but it is impressive. YouTube browser window starts to tremble and shake and then seemingly implodes. Something new combined with something old (the song) definitely captured my short attention span.

Social Media Real Time Counter

2009-10-14T02:33:00.000-07:00

Since you got on this site:

Thanks Gary, this is pretty cool.

Expense a Steak

2009-10-02T01:30:00.000-07:00

This is an absolute riot. What a great campaign idea.

http://www.expenseasteak.com/

Oh no, MS does it again.

2009-09-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

This is a wild bunch. I don't think I would last at this party for even couple of minutes.

ESPN and W+K/N.Y. Go Virtual

2009-09-18T00:14:00.000-07:00

How cool is this?

ESPN

W+K/N.Y.

Judges Pick The Funniest Tv Commercials

2009-08-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

Market research and communication firm Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research, a unit of Omnicom Group, provided handheld meters that allowed the judges to record second-by-second reactions to the commercials, which dated from 1965. These are the best of the best. What do you think?

No.1 Ikea

No.2 Levi's

No.3 Outpost.com

No.4 Federal Express

No.5 Alka Seltzer

No.6 Verizon

No.7 Budweiser

No.8 Yahoo

No.9 EDS

No.10 Southern Airways

I don't always like Beer Commercials, but when I do, I Prefer Dos Equis

2009-07-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Most Engaged Brands on the Web

2009-07-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

A study by Wetpaint and Charlene Li of Groundswell fame scores the engagement level of each of the top 100 brands across more than ten social media channels, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and discussion forums. Here's the top ten:

1. Starbucks (127)
2. Dell (123)
3. eBay (115)
4. Google (105)
5. Microsoft (103)
6. Thomson Reuters (101)
7. Nike (100)
8. Amazon (88)
9. SAP (86)
10. Tie – Yahoo!/Intel (85)

The study also claims a correlation between social media engagement and revenue growth. The brands most aggressive in social media saw revenues grow an average of 18 percent over the past 12 months, while the least active saw revenues drop 6 percent. I doubt that their level of social media engagement had much to do with their revenue growth, it is just that these are companies that do a lot of stuff right besides social media. Then again they're not taking any chances with social either.
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Gotta love #9, who would've guessed SAP?

Cherry Girl

2009-04-30T01:06:00.000-07:00

MTV has just come out with an environmental campaign "Cherry Girl". It includes a 60 sec. video spot, website, Facebook page and of course a Twitter feed. That's all good, but the the clip itself is a perfect example what advertising should not be - ART. Advertising is a business and it should always be measured by it's ability to sell stuff. I do get the difference between an ad for CPG and a public service announcement, but still - you need to sell the message. By the way I did get the story: she works at the dry cleaners, stuffs envelopes with cherry pits into clean suit pockets and when a customers discover and open the envelopes - cherry trees all over. I just did not buy it. By the time the clip was over I had forgotten about the environment also.

She also has a blog and she's on Flickr

Wikitude makes Augmented Reality useful

2009-04-29T02:27:00.000-07:00

Augmented Reality has always been cool, but that's just it - it has been only cool. Now Wikitude from Mobilizy makes it also useful, while keeping it cool.

Semantic Marketing

2009-04-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

If you built it they will come, just imagine a marketing plan that interconnects all aspects of your and your clients' existence. Harness the data, then meta-data, then analyze across the board not forgetting that everything is connected, then optimize...oops, let's call it SWO - semantic web optimization. Optimization within subnetworks of networks and so-on. Then react accordingly and distribute your own data with your own meta-data. Then track and measure the impact across the board, analyze, re-analyze, mash it all together, add a pinch of nutmeg and think for a second that you're done.

Marketing plan that mines the semantic web for customer service, market research, customer monitoring, competitive intelligence, brand protection and something else that I can't even imagine. Your brand in all of the spheres - blog-comments-forums-viral-social-micro something and Google. Because Google will not die anytime soon. It is afraid, but afraid with lot of money. Every time it gets scared it will buy whatever makes it scared. Twitter's next.

Semantic branding and marketing, it's coming and it's gonna be cool.

Viral is not a noun

2009-04-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

Since when "viral" no longer describes a spread of things. It seems that nowadays "viral" refers to a thing, not an action. In any case here they are - the latest hits:

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Is it just me, but it seems that online viral clips are becoming little too main-stream? Cool factor - gone. I guess all that's left is to play by the rules that all other media channels obey by - make content that people love and that's not an easy thing to do.

Big Mac & Apple Pie

2009-03-27T00:58:00.000-07:00

Hip-hop artist/producer/stylista Pharell at the Paris Charles deGaulle airport starts singing and dancing just to get food at McDonald's is the very best kind of customer "Lovemarks". Somebody being there with a video-cam makes it perfect. McDonald's should be ecstatic and maybe they are. Let's not forget that Pharell, unlike some other hip-hop artist, is a real cool guy and all in all likable human being. If only the employees in Golden Arches uniforms would have shared some of the enthusiasm for their product shown by Pharell.

My Name is Bond, James Bond and I wear Baltman

2009-03-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

What's going on here? When most brands in a whole wide world are directing their ad and marketing campaigns towards sensibility right now, Baltman is taking the opposite approach, by telling us that if we wear their suits we are not only gonna look good, but also gonna get laid. A lot. Beautiful women, even better, beautiful women in pairs and blindfolded, will become our sex-slaves.

All this because I'll be wearing Baltman clothes? Well it better happen. I'm taking your word for it and buying it. Plus I will complain if it does not happen. Complain a lot.

I'm as kinky as the next guy, willing to roll with the best of them, but the last picture gives me the creeps. Once again Baltman you better deliver on your promise.

@savisaar - To Tweet or not To Tweet...

2009-03-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

...that is the question and the answer for you @savisaar is a simple NO. Whoever is in charge of your Social Media or Online Media or Earned Media tactics unfortunately does not have any kind of understanding what Social Networks are all about. Sure he made you start a blog or at the very least started writing the posts for you, but that's not enough in 2009. Fire him.

Posting links to your blog on your Twitter account is not just beat, it's a pathetic attempt to do something without knowing what you're trying to accomplish. Twitter is not about you, Twitter is about what everybody thinks of you. Make it personal, make it human... OK that'll be hard. Well make it funny then and fire him. Make that announcement your first real Tweet. He is no good at his job. He's work has "me too" attitude written all over it and now so does your Twitter account.

By the way, your Tweets are your voice and right now you're telling everybody that you got nothing to say.

Holy Mess Over the Rainbow - the Future of a Corporate Web-site

2009-03-04T00:32:00.000-08:00

Skittles has taken a small step for a candy, but a giant leap for a CPG brand web-site. A click on skittles.com will not take you to a corporate home page in a traditional sense, but instead to Skittles on Facebook. The only thing that has the functions that we have become accustom to on brand web-sites is a small widget in a upper left corner. Clicking on listed products will land you on a product Wikipedia page, so even this is very Social Web.

The rest of the clicks on the widget categories will take you respectively to these: Pictures - Flickr, Videos - YouTube, Chatter - Twitter, Friends - Facebook. So it's all good, somewhat messy, but still good. When I say messy I'm talking about little things that make up the big picture. For example if you search for Skittles on Twitter, you'll end up with 43 results and there's no way to tell which is the actual brand among them. I finally settled for these two - @skittlesrainbow that has 0 updates and @skittles_com that has 126 updates all of them going like this "I'm a Skittles master... get a free Netbook only for Skittles USA/Canada: http://tinyurl.com/bl3yeg #skittles". Not sure which is worst.

Still, is Skittles showing the way for the rest. Is this the future of a corporate web-site? Let's not forget the risk factor that comes with earned media - the social media - the uncontrollable media. For Skittles this undertaking is pretty low risk. When was the last time somebody opened a package of candy and was so disappointed with it's contents that it stayed with him or her for years. At the same time I still remember when an airline refused to let me board a plane with my kids at 6 in a morning. The younger one was only two at the time. Let me see if I can remember the airline, well there's no way I can forget that. SAS.

So here it is. Is this the future? Is this the solution? Is it worth the risks? I think it could be . Even when a Brand drops a ball and really screws a customer and the customer posts all his negative emotions on the brands Facebook wall, it will give the brand an opportunity to engage in a dialog. Not an easy thing to do, but it's better than watching and hearing all these conversations from a sideline.

What do you think?

NB! Oh yeah the picture is one of the results from the Twitter search.

WHOPPER SACRIFICE HAS BEEN SACRIFICED

2009-02-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

I know this happened a while back, but just now I checked the link and it made me smile. First of all, I think that Burger King "Sacrifice your Facebook friends for a Whopper" was a truly original and funny campaign, scarce commodity nowadays. Give up ten of your so-called Facebook friends and earn a free burger. Tell me this is not making you at least crack a smile. The loose connections so widely spread all over Facebook are called friends, if Facebook would use a word like contacts for example, then a sacrifice your contacts would not be funny at all.

Unfortunately Facebook forced Burger King to terminate the whole thing over some privacy issues and that's too bad, cause c'mon it is funny. Still, I think it's gonna be a while till we see something as simple, free and absolutely hilarious. Good for you Burger King and also you must admire the perfect ending. Here it is http://www.whoppersacrifice.com/

As an afterword I want to add that who knows which side of this app was more receptive to the marketing message. The one who was willing to give up friends for a value of a sandwich or the one who got the message that this burger called Whopper is more valuable than his or hers friendship. LOL. Perfect execution.

Kluster or clusterf**k

2009-02-26T10:22:00.000-08:00

For everyone who doesn't know that I love all things crowdsourced - here it is " I love all things crowdsourced". Lately I've been playing around with kluster and it's younger sister namethis. I'm not sure why I picked sister over brother. Anyway namethis is simple by nature naming process for new businesses, but it stays true to the whole wisdom of crowds thing. Plus guess what, it's plenty fun.

The way it works is that you sign up and you're ready to start giving baby names to baby businesses. You just read a short description of a start-up and try to give it a truly original and useful name. There's also a reward involved, but the amounts are usually marginal and I really don't think anybody would get into this for money. Then again times are hard.

My only problem with namethis is that I have not been able to come up with a good enough name for something. All of my suggestions keep getting un-original ratings, can't even crack the average rating. Then again I have a feeling that it's all on me.

Now kluster is much more complicated and sophisticated. I'm really rooting for them, since their platform is built for accomplishing serious things. Now they just need members and what I remember from James Surowiecki's book is that you need a lot of them. Variety is just as important.

Let's say you build a community of 100 000 members. Great. Unfortunately 95% of them are guys who think that if you haven't built a Twitter+Second Life+Virtual Earth mashup, you haven't lived. That's where the great idea of kluster can turn into a total clusterfuck. Still I'm rooting for you guys. I'm also starting a DIYcity Group for city of Tallinn.

Same time I'm taking it slow. Baby steps...baby steps. Well hey, I'm still trying to reach the un-reachable goal. An average rating.

Ray Ban Gets It - kinda

2009-02-05T00:36:00.000-08:00

We all remember the guy catching sunglasses with his face, it was good and fun. So to stay with a viral feel Ray Ban is continuing with Cutwater and brought us these. I do absolutely love the "Disco Ballers" or "One Man Disco" or what ever you would call it. It's the second one. I do not like the length of it and also that it's still following all the guide lines of old-fashion TV ads.

Is this the future? Virals merging with TV 30 sec. spots and becoming professionally produced virals that last 3 minutes? That's not good, I don't have the patience to watch 3 minutes of still obvious advertising. I think the impact could be made somewhere around 15 seconds.

I do admire Ray Ban for its self-discipline though, their slogan "Never Hide" is visible at the end of the clips only if you look for it. It would've been so easy to go down the slippery slope and plaster their logo all over the content. Maybe that's it, nowadays it's content as long as it's missing the logo and content becomes advertising as soon as the logo makes an appearance.

COOL - UNCOOL

2009-02-03T14:09:00.000-08:00

An uncool company like Microsoft brings you an uncool product like Songsmith, but then somehow some people still found a way to use all this "uncoolness" and make something cool. Pop culture at its very best. Here are couple of my favorites.

Just for comparison here's what Microsoft came up with to promote Songsmith, gotta warn you - it is physically painful. Watch at your own risk.

AOL screw-up becomes ART

2009-01-29T00:49:00.000-08:00

In 2006 AOL released millions of search logs, by mistake of course. All the search engines keep telling us that search logs are anonymous and carry little meaning. Here it is. You decide.
"I love Alaska."

I Love Alaska - Episode 1/13 from SubmarineChannel on Vimeo.

It's 2009 and we are what we search for. Turns out it was the same way in 2006.

Google, Skype and Twitter are making me dumb, cheap and lazy.

2009-01-27T11:37:00.000-08:00

...and I don't care.

I no longer even try to remember the way to spell words like accommodate or conscientious. I'll just let Googles recently updated algorithm for misspellings do the work. Type in couple of letters and voilà - done. Who needs grammar.

I no longer understand why do I have to pay the phone company. Skype is free, Fring that puts Skype on my mobile is free. Paying for something like that just seems so unfair. I think even the phone companies are starting to get it, that's why they're cutting back on offering free WiFi. They used to do it more. This must be their last stand.

I no longer check my RSS or News feeds, I just keep Twitter open and if there's anything even remotely significant happening, I"ll know about it in seconds. Lazy - yes, but efficient lazy.

So here we go, say it out loud - I'm dumb, cheap, lazy and proud of it.

MyFitness I Know You Missed Me

2009-01-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

Here goes the # 1 of my resolutions, but just to get 2009 off on a right track, I need to be fair and let everybody know that they did not raise the price of monthly membership. Maybe it's me, maybe it's them being nice and understanding, or maybe it's just a federal law that prohibits raising the price if a client was signed to a contract with the club before it was sold. What do you think?

In any case the amount stays the same. Here's their letter:

Hea MyFitness Rocca al Mare klient,

Täname Sind usalduse eest, et oled sportimiseks valinud MyFitness Rocca al Mare fitness-klubi!
Anname Sulle teada, et Sinu liikmelisuse leping, mis on sõlmitud Coral Club OÜ-ga, hakkab lõppema. Kehtivusaja lõpp on 31.12.2008. Selleks, et saaksid muretult endistel soodustingimustel treeninguid jätkata, palume Sul lähiajal pöörduda kliendihalduri poole, et sõlmida leping My Fitness OÜ-ga.
Sinule, kui pikaajalisele klubiliikmele, pakume väga häid tingimusi jätkamaks MyFitness kliendina, kuutasu jääb samaks!
Tavahinnad uutele liitujatele on tunduvalt kõrgemad.
Soodustingimustel liitumine kehtib vaid Sinule kuni 31.12.2008.

Meeldivaid treeninguid meie klubis!

MyFitness Rocca al Mare meeskond

Wait a second...I needed to sign something before 01.01.2009. Crap. Does that mean that I still need to look for a new place to work out? Plus I now own several black and red MyFitness towels that are not available for rent, just sales. In case you don't remember I was not happy about that here.

For conclusion: I was on the stationary bike today and some what bored, so I ended up reading their club rules. Who in their right mind works the term "Force Majeure" into gym rules? ... and I can't help myself... I just have to add this ... misspells it.

Resolutions.

2009-01-13T08:31:00.000-08:00

I will stop ranting about MyFitness, because nobody's making me go there.

I will look for good in people, companies and brands.

I will look hard, because I will need to.

This year I will work hard.

I will consume less of everything.

I will finally start taking care of my personal online brand.

I will start a meaningful relationship.

Eesti Post Takes It Up a Notch

2008-12-16T14:30:00.000-08:00

True story.

While doing a favor for a friend I got something shipped from Japan. So it's the usual, I get a notification and I go to the post office. There's no line, but somehow I end up waiting for 15 minutes anyway. Oops, I'm getting off the subject.

Now the girl behind the little counter makes me fill out a huge stack of papers and tells me that I owe 310EEK's to the Postal Service. 210 for import tax and 100 as some kind of fee. I'm sure there was real original explanation for it or maybe not, could've just been a processing fee.

I look at the girl and ask "Do I have a choice?". She replies "No, if you want your package". So I pay.

It's only later that I realize the days date and also the meaning of it. See it's december 5th and starting december first people are not required to pay importing taxes or fees as long as the value of shipment is less than 150 Euros. Mine was 98 US. Sure, by this time it was too late to argue with the girl at the Post Office.

So I started to make some calls. First call was to the Customs Office and the information I received from was encouraging. They told me that Postal Office had no reason to charge me. Well that's pretty simple.

So now I called the central number for the Postal Office and this is where it gets funky. Their response was that - yes I was not obligated to make payment and I should have refused to pay. Telling them that in that case I would've walked out without my package made no difference. They told me that still... Post Office is not obligated to inform their clients about the changing laws.

So wait, this is wicked - I'm not obligated to pay and they're not obligated to tell me that I'm not supposed to pay and altogether nobody's obligated to do anything. Somehow I still ended up being ripped off in the middle of this everybody being nonobligatory.

This would be an excellent defense for armed robbery - " I was just asking, they could've said no. They were not obligated to hand over their valuables."

Gone are the good old days of Post Offices getting robbed in the Wild West, nowadays it's The Post Office that does the robbing.

MyFitness Strikes Back

2008-11-21T13:07:00.000-08:00

For some reason it seems they're taking it personally, I'm not taking it personally. I'm just being a committed and somewhat confused customer. It seems that instead of approaching the matter rationally they decided to counter-attack. Here's their 1-2-3 punch combination.

1. I like the steam room. It's much gentler on my dry eye syndrome than the sauna. Oh, and here's the product placement pitch - " Oxyal - the liquid of gods, too bad it doesn't come in gallon jars ". No no, I'm not getting paid for this, I'm being a brand evangelist...Let's get back to MyFitness. Steam room was closed for maintenance for three days and now when I go in there, I can't even break a sweat. Well, in that case why the hell would I go in there? They did manage to hang up some new signs though. One that states - MySteamRoom and two warning everybody about the hot surfaces. Yes, that is very responsible, too bad it no longer gets hot in there.

2. I would like to be an organized person, I really would, but...maybe it's just not meant to be. So, sometimes I forget to bring a towel with me. It used to be that in these unfortunate instances I was able to rent one for 25EEK's. That's no longer the case. Either planned or unplanned, I got no proof, they're all out of rental towels. Lucky for me and everybody else they have brand new towels for sale. The price is a "measly" 150 EEK's and of course it has a MyFitness LOGO on it, a BIG ONE. Now I happen to have an inside track on this and I happen to know that these towels cost them 65EEK's. That means, they would make their money back by renting them in 2.6 times. I guess that was not good enough for them, but that's not even my point. It's just that I don't need any more towels, I do need a replacement in case I forget mine.

3. ...and this one is a killer, the WiFi that was iffy to begin with is almost gone all together. They should rename it IfFy. My phone is no longer able to access it in about 80% of the gym. Since I couldn't do anything else while pedaling I ended up reading their new "Gym Rules". Turns out that mobile phones are no longer allowed. I guess they don't realize that for lot of people it's either you come to the gym with access to WiFi and other mobile communications or you don't come to the gym at all. I wish them luck...I do.

1-2-3-KO.....but wait, I totally forgot. IT IS NOT THE ONLY GYM IN TOWN.

Wiki Marketing

2008-11-20T10:32:00.001-08:00

Is this the future? I think it's definitely part of it and the first example of close to perfect execution is here. Take a look at HBO's True Blood Fan Wiki. HBO has been the most aggressive brand when it comes to engaging with the audience or allowing fans to take content and post it on other sites. The result - visitors to the "True Blood" wiki site stay 61% longer than on HBO's traditional site. Each fan contributes about six posts to the forum. The average time that visitors remain is 10 minutes on the wiki, compared with six minutes on HBO's main site. Need I say more.

Here it is : http://truebloodwiki.hbo.com/

NB! Obviously Wiki Marketing is not for every brand. You do need enthusiastic brand evangelists to be successful with this, but if you do have them - sky's the limit.

In Search of a Perfect Burger at Swissotel

2008-11-19T13:26:00.000-08:00

This was supposed to be a post on my food blog, but things don't always work out the way you plan. I wanted to compare three burgers I was gonna stuff myself with at three different places all in one day. I picked No3 Deli at Swissotel, Museum and McDonald's.
This is what happened.

15.30 I walk in the door at the Swissotel knowing that I have to attend a Deloitte round-table at 16.00(which by the way was surprisingly delightful). So, here I am. I say "Hello" and smile to the girls of No3 and before sitting down tell them that last night I heard somebody rave about their burger. Unfortunately I'm in real hurry so could you please tell me how long it will take. The response I receive is 5 to 10 minutes. Great, in that case I'll have a burger and a beer, please.

15.42 I walk up to the counter to remind them that...I really would like my beer now. They say OK.

15.52 My beer arrives.

15.55 My beer is finished. (Well... I had no idea they come in such tiny sizes anywhere in a world).

15.59 I walk up to the counter to announce that it's time for me to leave and I'm really not happy about the growling in my stomach. They tell me that it usually takes about 20 minutes for them to prepare a burger. At this point I'm not sure which way to go - either I could complain that they promised me a burger in 5 to 10 minutes, or I could point out that it's been exactly 29 minutes since I ordered my effing burger.

16.00 I pay for my burger and a beer, which by the way was quite a bit and leave mumbling ... I don't wanna use these words. No - we are sorry, no - maybe you could come back later to enjoy your burger, our burgers really are great, nothing. No - FUCKING A - nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

...and just recently I was told by a somewhat of an inside source that the occupancy rate at Swissotel hovers around 8%. I was the only customer who was ordering food, I was the only customer who made it clear that everything is not Hunky-dory. I don't know, how 'bout using the resources you have for the rest of the 92%, who are just sitting around doing nothing. I'm sure that if you combine everybody you can make it happen - it's just one burger.

I did get it four hours later at the Museum. It was not perfect, but boy was it satisfying.

Skype Has Given Up on Us.

2008-11-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I was on Skype Video Call for 27 minutes. The SKYPE VIDEO CALL was dropped by SKYPE exactly 7 times. Then I noticed something, it used to be that after a Skype call they tried to conduct a quick survey, mainly questions about call quality and customer satisfaction. Guess what, they no longer do that. I wonder why, specially that I think I could've provided some valuable customer insight on Sunday. Probably going something like this : U GUYS SUCK & UFIDIOTS R DEAD,U JUST DON'T KNOW IT YET,EMBEDDED CHAT & VCHAT THAT WORKS WILL BURY U.

Anyhow I think I'll try the new Google Video Chat

NB. Don't think that I don't notice the negativity of some of the last posts, believe me, it is not intentional. Please, somebody give me a reason to praise you, your product and your service. I literally beg you. Exceptional services experiences are rarely forgotten. Think about it.

MyFitness Obviously not Worried about MyMentalFitness

2008-11-12T13:05:00.000-08:00

CONFESSION

I have a confession to make - I work out a lot. It's borderline obsession or addiction if you prefer. Almost every day I spend an hour on a stationary bike while reading my mails and sometimes answering them, then I hit the gym or the tennis court for another hour or two. I always feel the best right after working out. So it should be understood that I also take the facility I work out at very seriously.

PROBLEM

Recently my gym merged or was bought up or something like that. Now it's MyFitness. Since that happened some things have changed. First of all a big branding operation or maybe I should call it a branding tornado has overtaken everything. The entrance to the gym was redesigned to fit the universal MyFitness theme. Unfortunately they hired the same designer who did the "Korovo Milkbar" in Clockwork Orange and now when I walk in my cornias are literally screaming. So even though you don't need sunglasses in Estonia you'll need them if you do go to MyFitness.

Then they plastered every possible surface with labels claiming the obvious
like MyPool, MyStretchingRoom, MySpinning, MyLadiesLockerroom, MyToilets and so on. Today standing at the MyUrinal in the MyToilet in the MyMensShowers in the MyMensLockerroom I was surprised not to find a label stating MyPenis after unzipping. C'mon guys, what are you trying to do? Take over the world by MyBrainwashing everyone.

BIGGER PROBLEM

There is a label from a shampoo bottle stuck on a shower-stall wall. It's been there for three days now. No biggy right? But what does it mean? OOPS, it means that the cleaning lady hasn't been to that shower-stall for 1 - 2 - 3 days. My, my, my...

The machines and the stationary bikes are tricky, well actually the tricky part is to pick which one to use, since most of them are missing something or are broken and down right dangerous. My, my, my...

The check-in at the entrance, that's right the check-in, has two computers designated for client check-in. One of them has never worked. To purchase a bottle of water requires at least a doctorate in logistics because nobody knows how to explain where to pay for it. How about a label saying "Pay for MyWater here". My, my, my...

Are you sick of my my-mys yet? Now you know how I feel.

Big part of the MyFitness theme is blasting music that's truly unbearable at high volumes and everywhere. I'm not gonna go into different musical tastes here and I don't think they should play music I like, but why did they have to install speakers in every hidden corner of every hidden hallway. Just yesterday I received a Skype VOIP call on my mobile and you know how Skype is... Well long story short - I couldn't hear anything, no matter where I moved because of the horror coming from the speakers. My, my, my...

DILEMMA

I have been paying for my gym privileges around 750EEK's a month. Hmmm, in fact exactly 750EEK's a month. Now I just found out that the type of membership I have will be 1299EEK's a month. HELLOOOOO. Haven't you noticed, there's a reasonable chance out there, that this is Armageddon, the Apocalypse, the end of the world as we know it. Even if it's not, I don't think many would argue that tougher times are ahead. Is this how you react to economic downfall and worldwide financial crisis - by raising prices by 70%?

CONCLUSION

The near future will be about value and added value for customers, not graphic design driven branding.

Flossie Man Vending Machine

2008-11-11T13:22:00.001-08:00

Love original, love ballsy and most of all love funny. Yes not everybody can do this, not every brand is suitable and not everybody has the budget. Then again if you pull the throw-away green from prime-time Tv budgets...it could work. Somehow I doubt Flossie will win many prestigious awards with this campaign, but I'm sure their target group will remember this for years and tell and tell their friends.

Crowdsourcing Lessons

2008-11-11T01:31:00.000-08:00

First of all thank you goes out to everybody who participated. I really appreciate your input and big thanks for nothing to everyone who didn't.

So what did I learn from my little experiment? That if you make it easy enough to participate lot of people will and you shouldn't worry about the ones who don't. Also that James Surowiecki is right, the result will be smart and selfless.

Then again the most important lesson would be the way people communicate in today's world. I received responses on these following channels : blog comment posts, e-mail,Twitter, SMS, Skype, phone calls and vis-à-vis conversation.

Lesson being that no matter what's the message, if you want to get it across, you shouldn't ignore any of the channels. Go where the conversation takes place.

My Very Own Little Crowdsourcing Project.

2008-11-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

I NEED YOUR HELP. I can't decide. PLEASE.

Looking for a new place to live, so cast your vote in the comments. Simple A,B,C or F is sufficient, feel free to explain your choice, but it's not necessary.

A

B

C

F

NB! Starbucks Breaks the Law.

2008-11-06T00:41:00.000-08:00

Turns out free coffee offer on election day is illegal. Go figure...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aIBd9wa0Xh7U&refer=us

Starbucks Cares

2008-11-04T10:52:00.000-08:00

Starbucks Cares and kinda gets it. What do you think?

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1370868150/bctid1898948779

PEPSI Forever

2008-10-28T11:59:00.001-07:00

So that's why I haven't being drinking Pepsi. The logo was all wrong. Rumors are saying that the total relogoing ( not a real word ) cost will be in several million dollars.
Hmmm...

I'm on TV

2008-10-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

It used to be that I had to send out crap like this myself, now my buddies are doing it. I like it.

All Blacks, Nano Technology and Adidas.

2008-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

This is not a Jersey - is the latest marketing campaign from a New Zealand All Blacks rugby team and it's got everything. High Tech, interactivity, fan base engagement and viral components. Like I said - everything.

One jersey at a time is getting engraved by the names of 100,000 fans. Team Captain Richie McCaw's jersey was just finished, meaning that the names of fans were engraved onto a single thread used to make the jerseys. No worries though, you can still sign up your name for the next jersey.

The engraving process is made possible by Fibre Imprinting Nanotechnology, which was developed by Professor Richard Blaikie of the University of Canterbury and the MacDiarmid Institute of Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology.

Talk about engagement - you sign up, you invite your friends to sign up and there's even a search engine to find who else has signed up to have their name worn on the battle field.

They call it "AdiThread" and you can sign up here http://www.thisisnotajersey.com/#/adiThread

Juan Valdez - the Second Coming

2008-10-17T12:05:00.001-07:00

I've always loved this brand and not only because I love coffee. Adored the laid back character invented way back in the fifties ( the friendly coffee grower with the somewhat ridiculous mustache, who comes to your door in the morning with a steaming cup'o'joe, not sure why they decided to ignore the late night coffee drinkers ). Absolutely loved him sitting in the stands at tennis US Open about a decade ago and consider the latest to be ingenious...

Here's the link http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/383742_juanvaldez17.html?source=rss

More Girl Talk for the Weekend

2008-10-09T06:31:00.000-07:00

Girl Talk takes it up a notch with Feed the Animals

2008-10-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

Girl Talk aka Gregg Gillis has turned Mashups into a truly new art form and you gotta love the pay as you wish business model.

Noosic T-Shirt: Girl Talk: Feed The Animals: Play Your Part - video powered by Metacafe

O Estado De S. Paulo & Nissan make You the Newsmaker

2008-10-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

Way too often I rant about some bad and sometimes downright pathetic marketing and advertising efforts. This time it gives me great pleasure to direct your attention towards a truly original and resources consuming campaign. Definitely no easy feat.

Daily newspaper published in Brazil combined forces with Japanese auto-maker Nissan and together they accomplished something truly different in printed news publishing world.

They simply asked the readers - What news do YOU want to see on the Sunday edition front page? Subscribers were given a task: generate the news and pictures that you yourself would like to see in the paper. The accompanying Nissan ad claimed - "Escape the pattern. You, yourself should write the news".

The process was made simple, it simply required the users to go online, click on a Nissan banner ad, write headlines, upload pictures and proof the finished product before submitting the work.

OK, if this would be it, I'd still consider it a cool campaign. Imagine the subscribers surprise Sunday morning when they received the paper with the front page they designed. More than 1,000 personalized front pages were created and distributed. This time the Nissan ad exclaimed - "We proved that deciding what should be the news is out of the pattern".

Extreme customization, interaction with the brand and just way too many super-cool aspects to list were used in this campaign running in a old-school world, advertising an old world product.

Proof that it's not about the environment the idea flourishes in, but the idea itself. It always is.

Tudish Piip is Back with REVENGE

2008-09-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

I can´t believe they did it. I don´t understand it, I don´t want to understand it and I´m little scared. The whole situation reminds me of "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" - sequel to one of the silliest and the funniest low-budget flicks ever, but not in a good way.

It did not make sense the first time around and it´s not gonna work this time either, but they will not give up. Persistence - not always a good thing. Makes me wonder though, next year - they gotta do it - right? Right?

In case you forgot, here are my past thoughts about RIMI advertising efforts - Rimigratsioon.

Best Marketing Esimene Eesti Internetiturunduse Kongress

2008-09-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

DAY 2

LIKED:

Cherry and white chocolate tartes.

Will McInnes, sotsiaalmeedia agentuuri NixonMcInnes tegevjuht - Somewhat likable, teddy-bear resembling stage presence. Made an effort with limited success to get the audience involved in the process.

DISLIKED:

Will McInnes, sotsiaalmeedia agentuuri NixonMcInnes tegevjuht - Kept it real basic,considering that the event was called Internet Marketing Congress I would have to say insultingly basic.

Used out-dated slides in his Power Point, realized and apologized for it. C'mon, is it really too much to ask for you to go over your stuff the night before?

Kept showing example Virals that date at least year an a half ago.

Talked and talked about what has happened in the past few years. It's Online Marketing man...nobody cares what has happened, we want to know what's gonna happen next and next and next. If you don't know - you should stay off the stage. You got nothing.

That pinkish brownish substance offered at the lunch buffet. Oh, the catering was done by Bonaparte. Good to know.

Best Marketing - see you next time.

Best Marketing Esimene Eesti Internetiturunduse Kongress

2008-09-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

DAY 1

LIKED:

Reval Auto turundusjuht Rivo Saarna ja ADM Interactive loovjuht Erki Peinar - Online Marketing Old School, but done real well and with big money. New ideas on integrating Online CRM with Home-Page experience ( ability to access maintenance records for example).

DreamGrow tegevjuht Priit Kallas annab 10 nõuannet paremate tulemuste saavutamiseks veebiturunduses - Short, fluent maybe self-explanatory for some, but a lot of value for most.

Paul Clements, Cannes Lions 2008 Cyber žürii liige, TBWACopenhagen loovjuht - Energetic, fun, loved the look of true disbelief on his face when it hit him, how little most of the audience understands what his talking about.

DISLIKED:

Miguel Moreno Toscano, EU Interactive Digital Consumer Marketing Manager - Using stats from 2006 in his PowerPoint when talking about Online Marketing. Why not 1906?
What an idiot.

Aleksander Smigielski, Unilever Central and Eastern Europe Media Director - Not showing up and sending a really dorky video interview instead. Where's my partial refund?

Marta Klepka, Gemius International Brand Manager - Puts Time Spent up on the big screen and then doesn't answer my question about the possible insignificance of the Time Spent and Page Views metrics. Also sensed hostility from her even 20 rows away.

Overall atmosphere : Would it kill everybody to have at least little bit of fun. You got out of the office... Why not to smile or something?

I'll be back tomorrow. To find out more about the Best Marketing Conference click here

I'll be tweeting a lot, so if you're half as bored as I will be, you can check my short format rambling going to my Twitter feed

OOPS

2008-09-16T08:13:00.000-07:00

Oops, forgot to include this one in the September 12 post " Best Video Ads Ever Made "
Got to be my all time favorite. Spike Jonze at his very best.

%%% JOOP %%%

2008-09-15T11:21:00.000-07:00

WHAT A F%%K IS J%%P THINKING?

DO THEY THINK WE ARE %%%%ING BLIND?

ARE THEY TRYING TO MAKE US %%%%ING BLIND?

DON'T THEY REALIZE THAT WE ARE WAITING FOR 100% OFF?

As you can see I didn't use a single " ! ", lots of question-marks though.

Best Video Ads Ever Made

2008-09-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

Funny = Best in my book.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Brand Tags - Fun with Brands for Everyone

2008-09-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

Brand Tags. I stumbled upon this without any help from StumbleUpon and liked it right away. It's simple, easy to use and fun. Yes, you're probably not gonna use hours on the site and not visit the site over and over, but the concept in it-self is absolutely ingenious. So I got curious and ran a search that came up with this great article about Noah Brier and the way he came up with the idea during a sleepless night. Gotta give it to him, not everyone get's epiphanies like that when they can't get any sleep. I'm jealous.

Try it, have fun with it. I specially like the battle mode, it's like a childhood card-game "War", but with today's brands.

http://www.brandtags.net/

AS Starman - Efficient Customer Service with a Smile

2008-09-08T10:41:00.000-07:00

In case you don't remember, I had a bone to pick with Starman back in July. In my post "AS Starman Can You Hear Me Ground Control" I was complaining about how I had no TV channels and an Internet connection that was not as continuous as I had hoped for.

Here's living proof that I can be fair if compelled to do so. Today I woke up in a battle mode so I decided to take my fight into the Lion's Den - AS Starman Customer Service Office.

Well...there was no line. A customer rep was dealing with a customer when I walked in, but she acknoleged me with the nod and that's enough for me. In about 20 seconds an another rep showed up, invited me to sit and then did something I was not prepared for - She smiled. I almost dropped the cable-box i was holding.

The rest of it is just as incredible, sure I did not get my problems solved right then and there, but that was my fault. See if I would not have forgotten the remote to the box they would have replaced everything at that very moment. They did give me directions though to their mid-town office, so I wouldn't have to drive back to them and told me that they will inform the other office about my visit.

Other than a little hick-up on a part of a trainee at the mid-town office everything went real smooth. She was asking for a document nobody should ever ask for, but sitting right next to her was another customer rep, may I add a very attractive one, who told her that they did call from the other office and she should just give me the new box.

And then she smiled. WOW. Customer service with a smile really is the best type of Marketing. No need to mindlessly spend money on mindless advertising. Thank you Starman for not ruining today. In case you didn't know - there's enormous value in that.

Tony Hawk, Shaun White and Jeep Wrangler

2008-09-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

Birdman and Flying Tomato. How cool is that? Jeep Wrangler and Birdhouse. Not once does anybody mention the brands during the program, but they're always present. How cool is that?

Product placement combined with advertising that's not intrusive. That's the way to do it.

See more Tony Hawk videos at Shred or Die

OK maybe I'm not being completely objective since Shaun White is possibly my favorite athlete.

I Love My Car

2008-09-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

I do. I love the way it looks, I love the way it drives, I love that it's not an expensive car, I love that it's not a cheap car, I love the looks I get from passersby, I love the way kids smile when they see it, I love when other people driving the same make wave at me( specially the pretty women ), I love the way pretty women know after seeing my car that I'm not overcompensating and I just love my car.

For everybody who's not seen my car, I drive a black Mini Cooper with speed stripes. How did they do it? Pretty much every brand, every company is looking for this kind of customer loyalty, this kind of customer devotion. This is it - the Holy Grail of marketing. People who paid money and have no regrets, people who will not be shy about telling others about not having any regrets. Unbelievable.

In todays marketplace that is usually over-saturated with competition and looking for an easy way out with plain stupid advertising it is hard to imagine that a brand can accomplish this. Does that mean that everybody should quit? I beg you, please don't.

Just think about it, you don't have to make the best product or the cheapest product. All you should shoot for is making a product that your customer cares about and maybe , just maybe they will call it Love.

Estravel - When is a travel agent not a travel agent.

2008-08-25T13:17:00.001-07:00

Here's my situation - I need to be in New York for Christmas and New Year's, since that is my time with my kids and I am already looking forward to it. Unfortunately that is very much the most expensive time to travel and that's exactly why I was pleasantly surprised when I opened a forwarded mail from a friend about a special travel offer from Estravel. See, usually these year-end dates are as blacked out as possible. Now, I also received the same forwarded mail from couple of other friends, but that is a totally different subject matter. I am not price conscious - I'm value conscious.......
In any case I hope you have friends like I do.

Estravel would probably be considered an elite travel agency offering elite travel service in Estonia and one of the better recognized brands in the country. I don't really get the whole " We got a new logo" thing, but hey lately I've been discovering a lot of that - not getting it.

I have used them quite a bit in the past and do have their gold card and found out today that ownership of that card does qualify me as a frequent client, for what-ever that's worth.

So here's the offer - because they have some kind of birthday or anniversary thing coming up, they will get me across the Atlantic for less than 4000 EEK's and that's less than $400. WHOAA. That is not bad. Maybe even great. I know as well as you would've known to wait for the catch. So here it is - THE CATCH.

The travel starting point has to be Stockholm. Hmmm...but I'm here. OK not the end of the world, but then the next absolute must travel check point is London and even though I want to end up in NY, my travel itinerary needs to somehow include Miami. Did you get this? It took me a while.

Anyway being value conscious....I decided to play along. Not really proud of myself right now, but I kinda had a plan to take my kids to Florida anyway, seeing Grandma and going fishing off the Keys and so-on.

After listening to fake finger nails abusing the keys for let's say five minutes I was informed that almost everything I was interested in was possible except flying on the dates that I had requested and the New York - Miami leg would have to be in business class and that would actually cost more than all of the rest of my trip.

That's when it hit me - Deja Vu, I had been sitting in the same chair disappointed before. I mean the same exact chair.

So when is the travel agent not a travel agent? Is it when they make promises they can't keep and do it knowingly? Is it when you want to go to a certain place and they tell you to go somewhere different? Really, C'mon if they would have included Prague in my travel arrangements I think they should have offered to pay me.

Travel agent is not a travel agent when they can't help you to travel, to get from point A to point B. That's exactly what traveling is. Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY ESTRAVEL!

Vapiano

2008-08-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

Vapiano is a flagship of inefficient customer service. Not only that, they are a perfect example of how customer does not matter for lot of businesses in Estonia. Usually it's just not as visible.

OK, in case you have not eaten at Vapiano, here's a quick explanation of the operation they're running.

You walk in the door - you are handed a plastic card that will keep a record of your orders - you will walk towards a counter - you will wait in line - you will order your food when it's your turn - you will wait for your food to be prepared - you will receive your food - you will realize that this will not be enough - you will get in the next line - you will wait in line - you will order your food when it's you turn - you will wait for your food to be prepared - you will receive your food - you will take your food on a tray and look for a place to sit and consume your food - you will find a place to sit - you will realize that you would like a glass of beer or wine with your food - you will walk up to the bar and wait in line - you will order your drink - you will wait for your drink to be poured - you will receive your drink - you will turn around and realize that you have forgotten where was the place that you found for food consumption - you are very smart and find the same place you had set down your tray - you will eat and have your drink - you will get up and be surprised since you realize that they don't make you bus your own tray - you will wait in line to hand in the plastic card - you will pay - you will grab some gummy bears from a bowl and leave - you will feel all warm and fuzzy inside because of the gummy bears while walking away.

I see the same attitude everywhere - at my gym, at the grocery store, at the bookstore, at the car dealership when trying to explain to them that my car really should not behave all freaky like that and so on and on. The personnel thinks that they are running the show while I'm being naive and thinking that it really should be me - THE CUSTOMER.

Is it a remnant of a Soviet era, is it a Nordic style of interaction or just giving a finger to everybody because you don't care and the boss is not watching. Combination of things perhaps?

Bruxelles-Brussel-Brussels-Brüssel

2008-08-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

It's not in a name, it's in an attitude. Brussels is a really laid back city, possibly too laid back for my taste, but in a good way. I know that I'm here in august and tens of thousands of EU representatives, officials and lobbyist are not, but I believe that the lack of them is actually bringing out the true spirit of the city.

And in the spirit of that laid-backness, not sure if that is a word in any language, I witnessed today an example of how businesses that could compete against each other can co-exist and co-operate in a perfect harmony.

Not far from the Square Marechal Montgomery where I'm staying, thanks to my good friend who was kind enough to offer his place for my accommodation, is Place Jourdan. An oddly shaped city plaza that has parked cars in a middle and is circled with cafes and bars on the outside.

Except for the parked cars there's something else in the middle. Maison Antoine is basically a kiosk that serves the best tasting french fries in Brussels. It doesn't matter what you call them - frites, chips or fries - one thing is for sure, everybody loves them. No surprise there.

What is different and maybe even special is the fact that not only do all the cafes and bars allow you to eat their fries sitting at their tables, but they encourage it with posted signs. It clearly states in French and Flemish that you are welcome to enjoy Antoine's frites at their establishments.

At some point they figured out that instead of taking on an impossible task of trying to compete with Antoine's fries they are better off supplying drinks to every thirsty Frites lover. You got to admit that this is somewhat unusual. Situation where everybody wins.

Maison Antoine is probably selling more fries because people know that they can enjoy them sitting down at the surrounding cafes and socialize with their friends while stuffing their faces with little sticks of heaven. Cafes and bars are probably selling more beer, coke and coffee because people who wouldn't visit them for no reason are there for the fries. Plus people are probably buying more fries and beer and coke and coffee than they would if they'd known that they would have to take the fries home. That's something that would rob the whole social aspect of dinner from them.

So here it is - everybody wins and everybody's happy. Perfect harmony. It's not that hard. It didn't take thinking outside the box or creating a Tipping Point for a Purple Cow swimming in a Blue Ocean. All it took was simple logic - if I let them do what they are good at and I keep on doing what I'm good at, everybody flourishes. Simple.

Now try to imagine an attitude like that with Mobile and Internet Tech businesses of Estonia. Impossible? Why not supply the users with free Wi-Fi wherever they go because of the potential traffic that will happen just because of the availability of free Wi-Fi? It's not that hard. Let's not forget that everybody loves fries. We do.

Planet Green Video ads - good for mother earth and funny

2008-07-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

Here are couple of links. I personally love the second one with Tommy Lee and Ludacris. Sure, we all assume that he doesn't shower, but it's still funny and just check out the look on Ludacris's face - priceless.

THE MAN WITH A SOLAR POWERED SWIMSUIT

LUDACRIS AND TOMMY LEE IN A DINER

New Dark Overlords of Dark Marketing

2008-07-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

McDonald's - can you believe this, yes McDonald's is doing Dark Marketing. Company that usually limits their marketing efforts to cheap plastic action figure type toys produced for 2 cents a piece somewhere in the South Pacific, is now doing Dark Marketing.

What's even better is the fact that they are doing it quite well. Maybe not real well, but well enough. Unlike the pathetic efforts by Sony (fake tourist: they paid people on the street to pretend that they are tourists and asked bypassing strangers to take their picture with a Sony camera) and Skype (fake enthusiast: they paid people in London Tube to pretend to love the Skype voip service and to participate in loud dialogs witnessed by other travelers). Pathetic and borderline unethical efforts.

No, McDonald's has taken a refreshingly honest and laid-back approach - a branded ARG. I love ARG's. They are creative, mysterious and often combine all possible ways of communication. The Lost Ring has been going on for quite a while now and is counting down to the Olympics. McDonald's has demonstrated restraint and has not plastered the whole experience with their Golden Arches Logo. Sure you will see them, but it's kinda like a post-roll. Not in your face at all and hiring Jane McGonigal as the designer is working out great. The game is great and the Corporation with big money is not ruining everything. How unusual, how unbelievable.

In my opinion the most surprising thing about The Lost Ring is the person with enormous cojones. The person who came up with the idea in the first place and then made the pitch to one of the most conservative and easily startled corporations in the whole wide world. I love you.

P.S. Then again I just recently fell in love with Julia Allison, so don't take it too seriously.

AS Starman - Can you hear me ground control?

2008-07-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Excuse me for such a frivolous comparison to a classic. I'm not even sure what made me think of it. My situation with cable and Internet service is probably the exact opposite of what Major Tom was experiencing in the song. In my case Starman would be the ground control that couldn't care less that "I'm floating in a most peculiar way".

See, for three weeks now, instead of the 77 channels I got only 6. Yes, I wasn't really watching most of them to begin with, but still. I'm paying for them. Plus losing the international news channels does annoy me.

I do take full responsibility for my failure to stay on the phone line for longer than 10 minutes and because of that I have not been able to talk to a actual physical person customer service rep. That is - if they do exist.

So here I am with six channels and Internet connection that's iffy at best. Since I do like to vent and like most people enjoy complaining about bad consumer experiences, I told my story to a good friend. Do you think he was shocked or surprised? No. I may add that he's also a Starman customer, if only for few weeks.

To my great disappointment he managed to top my bitching story with one of his own.
And it's a good one. He decided to get Starman Digi-TV service at the end of May. One of the deciding factors was that they were offering two months service for free. As it happened, he became a Starman Customer on May 31 at around 16:00. Just recently he was attentive enough to notice, and this is a riot, that they counted these 8 hours in the month of May as A MONTH.

I know and you know that this is not a coincidence. Long conference table with at least eight people sitting behind it was involved and a conscious decision was made. I just can't believe that they didn't discuss what should happen in case some one calls. See, my friend was told that his situation will be investigated.

Unfortunately "your situation will be investigated" is the corporate equivalent of giving a finger. What is there to investigate? You tried to trick your new customer and you were called on it. So apologize and fix it right then and there. Done.

But no, AS Starman considers us all idiots with bank accounts. I will spread the word and tell this story on every possible occasion. This is our last chance. They don't realize that this is not 20th century. All they have is the service they offer and we have the power to reject it.

If you do the math solution taken from a pretty good book by Mark Hughes - for every 23 unhappy customers who take time to complain to you, your company will have ten thousand enemies who didn't bother to write or call. Starman are you getting this? Right now it's 2 down 21 to go and 10 000 is a freaking ARMY.

Wasn't expecting this

2008-07-07T02:48:00.000-07:00

Rimigratsioon

2008-07-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Rimi,

I respectfully ask you to cease all advertising efforts present and future. See, I still haven't recovered from " tudish piip ". Your explanation that these are sounds - "tudish" being the thump that merchandise makes when it hits the moving belt at the cashiers and "piip" when it gets UPC scanned... I just couldn't wrap my mind around that. Every time I tried, I was getting a feeling like I'm having an embolism, so eventually I stopped. And now this.

Rimigratsioon. What the hell do you mean by that? Yes, yes I get it - play on words. The first one is obvious- RIMI and then what? Migration? Immigration? Something else?
And if it's migration, then migration of what? Are you talking about money migrating out of my pockets into yours? I can't even guess what's the deal if it's immigration.

So please do us all a favor and stop. If for no other reason then think about public safety, people are driving past your billboards doing 50-60 km/h and we all know that
laughing, rolling around and driving don't mix.

Please stop, no more.

Respectfully Yours,

Ron

OK, guys I really could use your input on this, in any of the world's languages.
I know I'm not laughing alone.

vidSENSE

2008-07-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

No doubt vidSENSE is an original and ambitious online video advertising solution, that differentiates it-self from all the wannabes by taking the video content from publishers environment to the advertisers domain. Great...except a tiny issue that doesn't sit well with me and maybe others. See the very first step in their advertising process is basically deception.

This is how vidSENSE describes the process in their DEMO, they call them content units - small pictures or thumbnails taken from vidSENSE video content, that are invitations for viewers to click on them. And now it gets little creepy, at least in my opinion and I'm quoting vidSENSE: "Content unit appears to be part of the website, it does not look like advertisement and because of that gets much higher CTR ".

Let's see - appears to be part of the website, meaning that they are not. So you guys figured out a way to trick me into watching advertising and you are actually proud of your-self.

No, it's not all bad. The fact that all the viewing takes place surrounded by the advertisers brand, since it takes place on advertisers website is a brilliant idea.
It's just that I can't get over the very first step, you deceived me and tricked me.

Sure it generates traffic to advertisers website, but what kind of traffic? Disappointed, pissed off traffic who in the next step are googleing products that similar to pop-up blockers will block involuntary traffic direction generators.

Maybe, maybe not.

And what about the brands? Do they want consumers with funny tastes in their mouths viewing content in this branded entertainment type of environment?

Again, maybe, maybe not.

Here's an good counter-view to mine by Seana Mulcahy who always makes an excellent point, as she did in her last post for OnlineSPIN. I just happen to disagree with her on this subject.

nrme

2008-06-27T00:14:00.000-07:00

Possibilities, possibilities. A new app for the I-Phone nrme is coming out soon and this one looks promising. Twitter-like by style, but if you take a closer look, it'll be all about location by substance. The transmitting of messages will be controlled by a pretty narrow geographical area surrounding the sender.

Now if the marketers get involved the use of this app can be promising. Sure it's gonna be fun to find out in which bar or club your friends are getting wasted at, but think about this - last minute price-drop for perishables, it doesn't have to be fish. Fruits, flowers even wedding cakes, that are not picked up.

On demand pricing for opera tickets or for over-purchased wagyu beef at the elite restaurant. Did I mention coupons? That's right location and time-line aware coupons.
This could be fun. It could be turned into a social marketing game.

Here's a link to TechCrunch post that describes nrme quite well
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/26/exclusive-peek-at-nrme-location-based-twitter-without-the-noise/

Best Crowd-sourcing effort up to date

2008-06-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

Brazilian best-selling author Paul Coelho declared a competition on MySpace for making a collaborative movie of the book "The Witch of Portobello". You can pick a character and film the segment of the book in which that character is the narrator (there are fifteen). Then the best entries for each character will be combined to complete the storyline.The entire movie will be submitted to film festivals.

Holy Crap! I think this is incredible. Considering that he's known to have passionate fans, he's executing this perfectly. He's narrowing the creative by dividing the project into segments, well actually his book did that, but it works out great. Meanwhile loosening the reins on trying to control the creative.Plus there will be more than one winner. Like I said - best crowd-sourcing up to this point.

Except...MySpace...Well you can't have it all.

In any case I will go and see it.

And don't take the "best" in the title literally, of course I'm aware of importance of Wikipedia, InnoCentive, Threadless and many others.

Overfriending

2008-06-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

Just today I noticed somebody new following me on Twitter. Somebody with the user-name OOzzl, he(since there's a picture) is also following 144869 others. Yep, that's right one hundred forty four thousand eight hundred and sixty nine others. WTF.

I do get it. He's a collector. He thinks that by following me there's a good chance I will be following him. But NO. I don't need another so-called friend. I truly believe, that my online friends should be at least somewhat similar to my off-line friends. I can't believe I just called REAL LIFE - off-line.

So here it is - Facebook's Beacon failed and there are a lot of reasons, but one that nobody's talking about is - that Word of Mouth only works if you care about the person's opinion in the first place. Oozzl's opinion on the other hand means absolutely nothing to me.

There's a definite connection between me, my every-day decisions (where to eat, what movie to see, which department store to shop at) and the source of the recommendation. If I don't know you, don't respect you - it means ... you guessed it.

Oh yeah, couple of weeks ago I met an old friend on the street and later tried to contact him on Orkut, but unfortunately he's over his friends limit. In case you didn't know, I'm pretty sure it's at 1000. I'm happy for him - that is a lot of friends.

Too bad, there's just very little value from marketer's point of view with these online super-connectors. The connections are too weak. That's putting it mildly, quite often the connections are non-existent.

So I will keep my real life friends and connect with them in real life, using all possible communication methods. Online and off-line.

APML

2008-06-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

I guess the future is now. Finally. Attention Profiling Mark-up Language is taking care of all of my on-line needs.Is there other kind? In a little while I-myself will cease to be necessary.

No more surfing the net,
Facebook-Orkut-Amazon-Ebay-Twitter-Google-Last.Fm mash-up will know exactly what to do.

Except, I kinda like the discovery part of online experience. It's the same with a lot of people and shopping, they don't want to find that perfect accessory in the very first store. They enjoy the process way too much.

Still, lately I have been fooling around with Engagd and I've been using Particls for quite some time. I also use Piggy Bank browser add-on and Last.Fm and Jango for my background music needs while using my laptop.

What I'm unhappy with is the quality of the recommendation engines. Maybe it's just me since even I consider my taste in music odd. It ranges from old hardcore punk like Black Flag to mellow crooner k.d.lang. My likings of movies are no better.

Even if it is me, there's still no question these engines don't work. Netflix is working hard on improving theirs, but hey - after entering around 200 movies I like, it still showed "Dude Where's My Car?" as one of the recommendations.

Personally I still like Amazon's - "buyers who bought this, also bought these".
It's not really an engine and there's no algorithms involved, but quite often it works for me. Maybe it's the human factor.

I don't know what I don't know and too often I don't know what I want. It also doesn't look like truly semantic web is happening any day soon. It could be a good thing.

I dread the day my browser will know exactly where to take me.

Online Marketing Buzzwords Du Jour

2008-06-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

What would I do without the ability to hypothesize about the tools of engagement that can monetize my platform for customer synchronization? Without that, how could I possibly automate the optimization of my behavioral targeting methodology or expand the customization engine with which it meets my ROI?

WOW...

P.S. Does that ROI stand for Return On Investment or Return On Influence?

I want to play

2008-06-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Yes I do, I want to play and I'm sure there are others. Not everybody is willing to admit to that. Well I'm ready and brave enough. I admit it. That's what I want. I want to play.

Life is not easy and we are way too serious most of the time. So this is my resolution, I know it's not New Year's, but who said you can't have June or July resolutions. Now I just have to figure out a way that will seem at least somewhat acceptable for the rest of society.

See I think that we could use play in almost all of the everyday situations. The workplace - it just screams for it. The daily commute - let's see, if I let every car that's not yellow to cut in front of me in traffic, how long would it take to get the finger from the driver behind me? OK, maybe it'll add few minutes, but I could feel better about the whole trip. Then there's relationships, it's already all play, not all fun play though. We need to work on that. Sex - need I say more, without play and being fun it's just a release, then again with fun play - it's the best thing possible.

Distinguished psychologist, ethologist, affective neuroscientist, and one of the greatest intellectual troublemakers of 20th century Jaak Panksepp discovered that play offers another arena for social epigenetics. His work identified a specific compound generated during play that drives genetic transcription. His findings add new significance to every child's universal yearning and to mine and I have a feeling to your's as well.

I want to play just means that everything that's going on gets suspended in "as if" reality. That can only happen in relatively safe environment. Well ... where could that be in the beginning of 21st century? Too many family environments are dysfunctional. TV? Not really an environment, still more like moving pictures invented in the beginning of the previous century. Facebook or Orkut? Basically schoolyard bullies who are spying on us just to tell on us, all the while taking our lunch money. I personally think it does not exist.

So here I am with my brand new resolution, but no good outlet. Guess what? This whole thing requires a simple action. Letting go. Saying ... fuck it. I want to play.

All you marketing people out there are you getting this? I' m not alone and we are not afraid. If anything we are bored. So what are you scared of? We are ready and you can make money off us. Let's play.

Free beer

2008-06-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

Euronics stores that sell home electronics and household appliances are giving away free beer as a mid-summer promotional campaign. Just imagine, you shell out 36 000 EEK's for a plasma or LCD TV with diagonal size somewhere in a range of 40 inches and you will receive 24 cans of A.LeCoq beer.

Whoaa, beer for nothing. Who cares that it amounts just around 1% of the purchase price. It's FREE and it's BEER. Again - it's BEER.

Alright, in case you did not detect my well hidden slight case of sarcasm, I confess - I am being facetious. I think this is an absolutely idiotic use of marketing man hours and an idiotic use of beer for that matter. Think about it, it's a store that sells refrigerators, but the beer is displayed on top of them, not inside. That even takes away the surprise factor. It doesn't stay cold that way either.

Well if you disagree, be my guest and help your-self to a 24 pack at your neighborhood Euronics. Cheers

Kabanoss free - good for your heart

2008-05-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I witnessed quite possibly the best advertising campaign in Estonia in years. Well at least in my opinion and it came from an unlikely source. Passing a Neste gas station I noticed a pretty big green banner with easily readable simple font on it.

The message stated "Futura 95 kabanoss free" and a smaller heart shaped banner next to it that said "Good for your heart". Everything of course in Estonian. I couldn't help myself and smirked.
Few seconds later I was laughing out loud.

It was just perfect - low tech, right on the spot, on message, simple and funny. For anybody not familiar with intricacies of Statoil gas stations food offering, kabanoss is something kinda like a hot dog, but not really. But what I loved about the ad was that it wasn't making fun of the quality of competitors gourmet selection, well maybe a little, it just stated the lack of it at Neste's gas stop.

Neste's clients and I'm one of them use them because the price and the speed of their self-serve stations. I know, the gas doesn't flow any quicker at their pumps, but it's just that every time when I do go to pay for gas at Statoil's little store thingy - there's a line. Guess what every other person in the line is purchasing? You got it. It's one of these hot dog type of things. All this while I'm ready to start pulling my hair out, because the whole process is taking forever. There's just too many decisions to make - ketchup or mustard or that white sauce, who knows what that is. We all know that too many options is not a good thing...

So here we go - hats off to whoever came up with this creative. It's directed at Neste's customers and it's making at least some of us laugh. There's value in that. I see too many people at gas stations who look borderline suicidal, so thank you whoever you are.

I saw another banner with "Futura 95 cholesterol free" on it and yes maybe not as funny, but still right on message. Come get your gas without clogging your arteries. Let's not forget - laughing is good for you, just like not eating your kabanoss today.

P.S. In case you miss the banners, here's the link http://www.neste.ee/etusivu.asp?path=1991;2050

Necessary evil or just plain necessary

2008-05-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

Hypersonic sound - some would say a really creepy new tool for advertisers who are trying to brainwash everybody around them or a real cool use of technology in cutting edge marketing world. All it really is - is a narrow sound beam that you can only hear when you stumble right onto it's path.

So while walking on a street you can suddenly hear a pitch, be it for a new blockbuster movie opening this week-end or a reminder from the makers of sunblock that at this very moment you are being fried by the harmful UV's.

Except that, it sounds like voices inside your head and unless you've counted on some schizophrenic tendencies in your not so distant future you could be slightly rattled. I can only imagine all the panic that will follow from the sometimes paranoid, passionate about human rights, all kind of advertising is extreme evil types.

I personally think it's cool. Mainly because it is something new, different and not boring. That goes for the technology, the message can still be lame, if the advertisers use the same slogans that we are bombarded with from all the other mediums.

This brings me to the point of this post. Why is it that almost everybody in Estonia loves to hate advertising? Quite possibly it qualifies for the national pastime. Nobody ever mentions the quality of advertising. In my opinion that is a very one sided and narrow point of view that is shared by the majority for no good reason.

There are so many brilliant minds working in the advertising sector, that is absolutely impossible for them not to come up with ideas that would entertain and intrigue the rest of us. Unfortunately way too often it gets all messed up somewhere in the process and what we end up with is just plain offensive.

The reason for this could be that we the consumers are not trusted by the traditional marketers.
They trust us enough to make a purchase, but not enough to engage in a conversation about the purchase and thus they end up unloading a very one sided "buy-buy-buy-don't think" advertising campaigns.

But guess what, for whatever reason we don't consider ourselves idiots. I know, that's gotta be a huge shock for them just by looking at a lot of media advertising nowadays. Sometimes it seems that they don't even try anymore. Why bother, let's just do it the way it's been done before.

And that's where the problem with advertising lies. It's not that there's too much of it or that it's too intrusive. No. It's just that 99% of it is predictable and boring and that's why everybody loves to hate advertising.

So here's a clue, make us laugh or catch our attention by giving us a scare, an adrenalin rush or anything and the national pastime of advertising bashing will, if not disappear all together, at least see a serious drop in popularity. Everybody would come out as a winner - marketers, advertisers and consumers.

P.S. Speaking of new technologies full of potential. Check this out. http://springwise.com/weekly/2008-05-07.htm#virtualwall

There Is No Tomorrow Marketing vs. Super Professionals of Customer Service

2008-05-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

I recently got back from Morocco. 10 days in this beautiful country were absolutely amazing. So many memories and funny stories, but I would like to concentrate on two very different styles of selling and marketing that we witnessed on this trip.

The first one I would like to call a There Is No Tomorrow and the other Super Professional. Both were always around us and I mean always - literally. The first one we encountered in every store, souq and on every street corner. It was the merchants who saw us as wallets and stupid ones as that. All they cared about was the money they could make right then and there, with no thought given to the next day.

Yes I'm sure it's not usual that European tourists stay in Marrakesh for a week, but they didn't learn either. We negotiated on the price one day and they did not remembered us the next, so everything had to start from the beginning. Quite often we were knowingly willing to over-pay for their products and we knew the prices, since we had been around for few days, and that's really all you need. But they refused reasonable offers hoping to make another few % of the purchase price and we ended up walking away.

The whole style of pushing the product on us was just not very efficient. Instead trying to figure out what the buyer is interested in, they kept pushing and pushing. Almost as if what you buy is not really important as long as you buy it from them. Not smart and not efficient. Perhaps they make a quick buck every once in a while, but they would do that anyway, just because of the share size of the tourist hordes in Marrakesh.

Then there's the complete package of customer service from what I would like to call the Super Professionals. It doesn't matter that they were all 8-11 year olds. Anybody who's been to a Medina in any of the cities in Morocco knows exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't then you probably have hard time understanding the whole concept. I'll try to explain.

The Marrakesh Medina is a maze of unearthly propositions. It took us three days before we could find our way to the Riad we stayed at after having dinner on the big square. Well, where there is demand there is a market - enter the Super Professionals of the Medina.

It all started the first night and I'm sorry I didn't witness this personally. We reached the Riad only to realize, that we had forgotten a folder with our plain tickets and some other needful travel documentation in our rental car, that we had parked just around the corner. Maybe 30-50 meters away. So two of my friends volunteered to recover the folder from our vehicle.

Alright., about 45 minutes later they returned laughing out loud. It turned out, that as soon as they walked out, they had encountered the boys hanging on the street. The boys did not bother them,didn't say a thing. They watched on as my friends made their first wrong turn into a dead end. Didn't say a thing when they made their second wrong turn into a different dead end, all this while pretending that they knew exactly what they were doing. I'm sure that must of looked believable- they were just out for a evening stroll.

Only after it became painfully obvious that they had no clue which way to go, did the boys intervene with a simple question - "Are looking for your car?". There was no blackmailing or extortion involved, nobody even mentioned money. It was just all understood. Service and Payment, but Service first. So my friends payed, got the folder and while the kids were distributing the rewards tried to sneak away.

Guess what, couple of wrong turns and they were just as lost as ten minutes ago. So they used the boys again. Now, so you wouldn't get a wrong idea, it had nothing to do with my friends path finding abilities. I confess, maybe I was just a little bit of a non-believer, but all it took was three minutes the next morning. One, two, three turns and I had no idea where I was and that was in the daylight.

So we used the boys several times and what I remember the most is the fact that after every encounter we were left feeling good about the service. They always waited before making serious contact, oh sure they were following us from the get go, but they were patient not pushy.They waited for us to show interest, either in a way of making eye contact or just responding to their jokes.

They waited for the PULL.

I think today's marketers could learn from this. Way too often are they pushing products on us, instead of making us desire the product or a service. There is no stronger logic behind the purchase, than the buyer telling him-self that the whole transaction was his idea.

The combination of push and pull is a very powerful thing.

Here they are - The Super Professionals

DIY open heart surgery is just around the corner.

2008-04-27T22:36:00.001-07:00

Remember Dr. Riviera from "The Simpsons" with his famous claim for open heart surgery that cost just $19.95. Guess what, somebody topped that and this time it's real. Funniest thing I've seen in a while. LASIK@home offered by Dr. Amir Khadim.

I twitter, you twitter, we all twitter.

2008-04-21T09:14:00.000-07:00

I think I'm falling in love again...This time with twitter. She's neat, organized, quick and always there. I love the way she cuts me off at 140 when I can't control myself and just start to babble continuously.

Well at least I think so. See, I still haven't figured out how to use it and I am not alone. Sure I just post tweets from my phone about how I feel and what I'm doing at that very instant and yes the other times when I'm confused about what I should be doing on my laptop I use twitter to express either my boredom or fedupness. That's got to be a new word.

What's even more confusing than my chaotic twittering is the way companies are trying to fit this new communication tool into their marketing mix. Just out of curiosity I chose couple of them to follow me and I'm following them.

Seesmic search - that's still in private alpha, but a really cool concept and it has been entertaining to follow all the techno-chat on a daily basis.

The other one has been Tablet Hotels, an online luxury hotel booking service type a thing. Now first of all I find the frequency of their tweets to be excessive, but that's not the main problem.

C'mon I don't need to be notified of every single new hotel that you guys just added to your network. I don't think anybody is going to drop everything and fly to Mauritius just because they can book a room through your website.There is no value for me in these kinda tweets. It's just new type of SPAM.

Oh yes, I want value from you, since I let you into my personal inner circle of my real twitter friends. These are people who I care about and who's opinions I value. You are a business and you don't really belong there with my friends, so wake up and offer me something. Be funny, scary, sexy, on the spot. Something...

and whatever you, do don't SPAM me.

What can we learn from absent-minded and alike.

2008-04-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

All right, so I'm walking down the street in Tartu, just in case, that's a small town in Estonia. It's a nice spring early afternoon, everything is pleasant and maybe little sleepy. I just got out of my car, after a two hour ride from Tallinn and I'm on a way to a business meeting.

My very good friend and a business parter, whom I know since we were five years old, is walking beside me. We are talking about how we're going present our case to the person we are meeting, but at the same time we're are just joking around. I haven't been to this town for almost twenty years and it's been eleven years for my friend. Oh yeah good times...

While walking down the hill towards the old town I barely notice the kid walking right in front of me and when I say a kid I mean somebody in his later teens. His wearing a black wind-breaker type of jacket with a big white logo on his back. But I don't really see him, sure I am aware of his existence, but I don't see him the very usual way we don't see other people way too often.

Then suddenly it hits me- like a wake- up slap in a face. The big white logo on his back actually bears words on it and guess what it says --- WHITE RACE WORLDWIDE.

OK, sure I know there's skinheads everywhere, but somehow at this very moment in this sleepy small town in Northern Europe it surprised the shit out of me. For some reason in my head I place them on some private compound somewhere in Michigan woods holding assault rifles at the gate to the compound. Same time the whole situation seems somewhat comical, since he's not particularly scary. Yes he has a crew cut and combat boots, but he appears to be too young to do any harm.

So then I start to think about the marketing aspect of this. It's obvious that nobody is born a neo-nazi, that means somebody had to sell this kid an idea. And boy did they do a good job. I don't personally care about the psychological side of it, I know somebody somewhere didn't love him enough or loved him too much and so on...

What interest me, is the fact how he was not only turned into a fanatical member, but also into a perfect evangelist for his brand. Here he is with his jacket, yes it is a quite a primitive form of outside advertising, but when you take it into account when and where he's doing it, it counts for more. I'm sure for unsure eyes with low self-esteem it could almost qualify as courage. Also lets not forget that he's probably a well trained recruiting agent.

So what can we learn from this incredibly well oiled branding machine in combat boots? Is it the message? Is it the timing?

I personally think that it must be the sense of belonging and a sense of ownership. Now if we could only create an environment that allows people to be themselves and share their thoughts, be it online or offline, we could gain incredible insights from that. Let's just hope that it will be something less stomach turning than white supremacy.

Let me know what anybody thinks.

PS. "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above" by Cansei de Ser Sexy is not only a cool song title, but also an excellent song in itself.