From Ross Hill – Cyberguru
26 very important words.
Category: business ideas
Singapore Series – episode 3 – Political correctness
I stumbled upon this car called ‘clinic’ while in Singapore. The bar has a hospital theme. Some of their gimmicks include wheelchairs to sit it, alcoholic drinks served in syringes, drinks served in drips, hospital beds and operating theatre lighting. See below:
Firstly, I found it very offensive. To me there’s nothing cool about emulating the situation ill people find themselves in while in hospital. Secondly, I’m certain that such an outlet in the USA, UK or Australia would be lambasted by the community and in the media. Is it different – sure. Is different always good?
The interesting issue is this: What’s unacceptable in one market, may be fine in another. The world is not a global village. Although we are experiencing convergence on a macro level, at a micro level, opinions and values will always differ.
Startups with global ambitions – take heed.
Singapore Series
On a recent business trip to Singapore I was surprised at how much cool stuff I saw. Not just start ups, but general marketing insight. It’s my general belief ( & many others) that globalisation has taken some of the joy away from travel. It’s harder to find new stuff, different concepts, and fresh ideas. Things just cross boundaries so much quicker now with the advent of $10 air tickets and the web.
But to my pleasure, it’s still out there if you look hard enough. So enjoy the next week’s blog entiries sub branded the “Singapore Series”.
Singapore personified!
By the way: How many brands are positively identified by their employees?
Flying under the radar
Flying under the radar – actually has some real meaning. It was once the optimum strategy for a spy plane to fly as high as possible. This was thought the best way to get ‘out of reach’ of enemy and radar. The U2 spy plane did this by flying above 85,000 feet. When one was shot down during the Cuban missile crisis some smart people decided to flip their thinking.
The solution was so obvious in hindsight. Simply fly very low where the terrain blocked radar effectiveness. Underneath the radar!
Maybe it’s time to flip your thinking to solve today’s business problem.
Technology transfer
Meet Trev.
Trev is small.
Trev doesn’t like going much faster than 120km per hour.
Trev only fits two people and two bags.
Trev can only travel 150km before he needs a recharge.
But Trev is efficient. He only costs 1.1cents to recharge per kilometer. Trev makes petrol look silly.
Here’s the thing. Trev is only possible because of advances in mobile phone battery technology. A classic case of technology transfer. The question entrepreneurs should be asking is what technology can we utilize from industries adjacent to us?
You can read more about it here.
‘Oh, by the way’…pricing & fuel surcharges
The latest trick of many airlines is to segregate elements of their product cost
– Introducing the “Fuel Surcharge”
Apparently this provides pricing transparency. Thanks Mr Airline, but we know the price of oil is rising.
Isn’t fuel a fundamental input cost for airlines? (30%)
Do they think we care what their input costs are?
Do they realize that we’d rather the total price – no tricks?
Do they know it reduces ‘trust’ in their brand and industry?
And just to show my total disdain for fragmented and aggregated pricing here’s a few questions I’d like to propose to the airline Industry:
Does Nike have a shoe lace surcharge?
Does Ford charge extra for the steering wheel?
Does Coke have an aluminum can surcharge?
Does Nokia charge extra for the buttons on the cell phone?
Fuel is not an ‘optional extra’. So work it out, include it and charge us a price. That’s what business is…. Businesses are meant to be working this stuff out to reduce the complexity in our lives. That’s what business does.
No wonder airlines have the highest business failure rate of any industry, and the worst profitability of any Industry in history. (which by the way is a net negative over the past 100 years)
Start up blog says: Consumers hate ‘Oh, by the way’ charges. Avoid them at all costs.
Barenaked Ladies embrace new world
Here’s an example of an organization who’ve embraced the new world to absolute advantage.
Rock band the Barenaked Ladies, achieved a reasonable level of commercial success in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. A song of theirs you may know is ‘One week’ – you can click here to watch it and jig your memory.
Their success enabled them to do what most bands can’t – secure a record deal with the large record label Warner. But in 2003 they sacked them. They thought they could a better job – and they have. They just cut out the middle man and began to have a direct relationship with their passionate fans.
Here’s some of the cool stuff they’ve done:
They have a ‘dynamic’ websites & myspace– not static pages
They blog ‘daily’
They include fans in ‘every’ film clip
They built a permission database
They provide ‘free’ downloads of their music
Allow ‘free’ sharing of their music (Youtube / File sharing)
They sell their records direct and collect all revenue
They have ‘band days’ and ‘invite only concerts’
They provide photos of the days events
They run cruiseship holidays for fans
(Yep, 300 of their fans socializing, eating, relaxing with them for a week or so, where they provide the entertainment for them every night)
The net result is this. Their fans feel like they have a real connection, which they do. Their revenue per album sold is now approx $6.00 to the Barenaked Ladies, versus the previous $1.00 while with Warner. They have pure creative control of their work and don’t have to worry about being dropped by their record label.
Their site link is here: http://www.bnlmusic.com/default2.asp
Kudos BNL.