Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Real one-to-one marketing in the Twitter age

At a seminar some weeks ago I asked Don Peppers (CRM and one-to-one guru) who was using Twitter, in a business sense, really well and what they were doing with it. His answer involved a large US telco with a history of bad customer service. They were using Twitter to identify complaints early, and here's the important bit, acting on them immediately to turn this perception around.

I'm glad to say that Australian companies appear to be doing the same. My recent experience booking tickets for the Sydney Festival is a case in point.

Briefly, the chain of events is this. I am booking a multi-pack on the dedicated phone line. You can only book on this phone line (not an auspicious start as I prefer to do these things online). Anyway, as usual, the lines open at 9am and are jam packed. If you are a keen Festival goer you will know that the popular shows can book out in hours. So I persevere.

I'm at my desk and after a long time of trying to get in the queue, then actually being in the queue for about 20mins I idly Tweet that my patience is running low.

About 1min later, SYDFEST tweets back to encourage me to hang in there, the queues are being worked through. Duly encouraged, I hang in.

And wait.

For about another 20mins.

So about now I Tweet again. I fear I have been lost in the queue and entered an electronic limbo. I Tweet again, airing my suspicions. Sure enough, SYDFEST gets right back and promises to look into things for me.

The world being what it is, I finally get through just after that. Succes! Well, almost. One of the shows I really want to see is sold out. Grrrr. Now I am becoming that grumpy customer. And Ilet the world know.

This is when the people handling the bookings really kick in. They know I've been hanging on the line. They have now realised I was lost in the system...and they can read that I am one unhappy bunny.

God bless'em, though. They Tweet me asking to DM my email and phone number. About 5minutes later they call me to confirm I was a victim of a technical glitch, and just what show was it that I missed out on....?

Another 5mins and a second phone call - they have found me the four seats I wanted for my show, and will extend the Multipack deal to them too.

I'm now a recovered, happy customer. Yes, I'd rather not have gone through this but it all turned out well.

The key things here are:
- Twitter can help you spot things going awry as they happen
- they can identify an individual who can then be dealt with as an individual
- backed up with empowered customer service people, action can be taken straight away
- if, like me, the individual is on Twitter, facebook and has a blog and likes to tell a good story as well as a bad one, many people may well here the good customer service story as well as the less good ones.

So, keep your corporate eyes on the social media, and have people with the authority and initiative to act on what they find, straight away. Now that's what I call one-to-one marketing.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Amplichoir and Seydisfjordur

Dell has partnered with MTV to try and create the world’s largest online choir, Amplichoir… in their words ‘we have no idea just how big it could become, but, deep down, we really want it to be the biggest one there is’. http://ema.mtv.co.uk/amplichoir, http://amplichoir.com/

The Icelandic village Seydisfjordur was filled with speakers broadcasting music from an eclectic bunch of artists including Bob Dylan, Federico Cabral and Guillemots as part of a film by Fallon to promote the high sound quality on Sony TVs. According to Fallon's Juan Cabral, who directed the spot, Sony turned the village into ‘an extraordinary sound-system for a week’. Watch it here. http://tiny.cc/Soundville

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Sneakers and Paintball Action

New Balance goes straight for the sneaker freak jugular with a beautiful campaign via Mother, New York. Each pair of the new limited-edition '574 Clips' shoes comes complete with a unique Polaroid picture showing where in the US it was made. This has a code on the back which connects the consumer to their own video hosted online - expanding on the origins of each individual pair. Users can then 'claim' their video before sharing with friends across various social networks and blogging platforms. http://574clips.com

Pop art via paintball on behalf of snack brand, Bon Yurt for Leo Burnett, Columbia http://tiny.cc/popart515. The full campaign features seven limited edition labels made by students www.bonyurt.com

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Wii & The Never Ending Why

Hockey Moms are the subject of a witty campaign to launch NHL 2K10, a hockey game for the Nintendo Wii. Via 72andSunny in Los Angeles, the campaign stars three moms who use the game to vent their aggression. http://tiny.cc/nhl2k10Wii

Finally, check out Champagne Valentine’s beautifully interactive promo for The Never Ending Why, the new Placebo single. Through Nexus in London, the multi-sensory experience steers the viewer through a landscape of shadows, monsters and psychedelic colour. http://tiny.cc/PlaceboChV

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

From Red Bull to a boot or that little sports car

Just a couple of quick things we like....

It’s not quite Mark Ecko tagging Airforce One, but Red Bull Cola has taken laser tagging to the M16 building in London thanks to Agents of Change, making the point that the brand’s natural cola has nothing to hide. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGbShQOwjjo

Hasbro has just kicked off Monopoly City Streets. The game is a limited-run massively multiplayer online interface that, thanks to Google Maps, allows players to develop property anywhere in the world in real time. More here www.monopolycitystreets.com

Ian stands up for design in Australian Creative

Some pearls of wisdom from Ian in Australian Creative...

http://www.australiancreative.com.au/blog

Monday, September 14, 2009

Putting our heads above the parapet

the hub stirs the pot. Goody.

http://mumbrella.com.au/parents-stop-blaming-ads-grow-a-backbone-and-say-no-9401#more-9401

Creative Without The Baggage

Well, we're finally launching our new service - idea creation without all the baggage. That is, creating idea’s against briefs but then allowing clients to bring those ideas to reality in terms of applications, layouts artwork etc.

What this means is that clients who have their own internal designer or preferred freelancers, can get the benefit of a creative agency for idea generation and creative thinking without the subsequent expense of a full agency structure to turn those ideas into actual communications. None of which they need if they have their own resources.

We’ve found that with so many clients now having their own internal design teams (as do you), that often they just need a good idea, a strong creative concept, which they can work up to layouts, artwork, online content etc. themselves using internal resources.

We reckon there's a market for this...


Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Melbourne - do yourself a favour.

Have you been following the furore over the new city of Melbourne brand identity. Well, in a nutshell, public money used to commission Landor for new brand work. Herald Sun goes ape shit over the whole expense ($240k); gets a bunch of students to knock up some alternatives.

So, what's my beef? Not the money, not the design, not even the outrage. It's the cheapening of the whole process through the low quality debate. Yes, it could have been done for less. Yes, it could have been given to a Melbourne agency to do. But the public debate has, not surprisingly for journalism, gone for the lowest common denominators. Money; not invented here; it's "just" a logo; my kids could do better. Frankly, from the self proclaimed city of culture the debate is rubbish (one great exception from Peter Singline commenting in B&T).

If Melbourne wants to do it's brand a favour then they could start by elevating the level of debate about a really important question - what is Melbourne?

Monday, July 27, 2009

Dunderhead DM on Mumbrella

the hub agency has a rant on mumbrella re: DM Dunderheads. That's right...you know who you are...

Follow the link below to the mumbrella website

http://mumbrella.com.au/why-is-there-so-much-dunderhead-dm-8036



Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Amazon Buys Zappos.com

Brilliant presentation from Amazon CEO.

Simple, short but really thought provoking. . His rationale behind the purchase of Zappos being based on culture, leadership and the brand is possibly the most interesting part of the presentation. Something that every business can learn from. Whilst no doubt revenues, profit, business model and technology were key influencers, he cites these 3 factors as the most influential.

Set aside 8 minutes of your day and check it out here; its well worth it.

http://mashable.com/2009/07/22/amazon-buys-zappos/

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Budget Direct...so many questions

Budget Direct ads.

Why is she French? Why are they cycling in the country? Why do we all remember it? And why does everyone I know, know the ad?

God we hope its working because for some reason, which we cant quite pinpoint, we all quite like it?

Booojay Direct. Inspirational.

The New VB work from Droga 5

Hmm. Just seen the new VB ad...There's a nice idea in there, but I'm not totally won over by the execution. That said, a couple of the 'groups' brought a smile to my face. I believe for the primary target audience of males 18+, C,D& E's, this will be extremely successful. On a personal note... I LOVE the new tag. The Drinking Beer positions it perfectly as a beer without pretense; a beer for consumption by people who like a drink. And most likely excellent to get ratted on. Dear Media Planners, do not attempt to achieve your numbers by dumbing it down to 30" spots. Allow it to live and breathe.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

The end of consumerism. Long live the consumer

Much talk has been made of the death of the conspicuous consumer. Especially in the states where over 70% of GDP is basically people buying "stuff". Well, here in Australia the story is a little different with the most recent retail figures showing the biggest growth in 2 years. Remarkable. Any one think the stimulus package is not working?

But what makes things more interesting is the rise of the neo (that's new eonomic order) consumer. A new way of buying. The neo consumer is not price sensitive. They buy less, but better. The buy brands that mean something to them. ANd they will carry on buying unrepeatable experiences. And there are about 4million of them in Australia. Big implications for product mix, brand building and, crucially, pricing. Could be time for a new approach, or maybe the time to ramp up marketing of the right products and services rather than throttle back.

For more on neo consumers have a look at http://www.socialintelligencelab.com/. For ideas on how to repsond, lets talk.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Alcopop tax good for the environment

Quite frankly from an environmental point of view the alcopop tax was great. People were stopping buying a slab of pops and buying it straight. That meant instead of 24 bottles 4 shrink wraps and a carton people were buying 2 large bottles. Bring it back for the sake of the planet if nothing else.