WHOPPER SACRIFICE HAS BEEN SACRIFICED

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

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

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

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

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.

...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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.