marketing Archives - Page 19 of 56

Theatre at Transaction – Der Raum

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

Recently I ended up at a bar late at night. It’s a revered place called De Raum. It’s been well covered on the web so I’m not going to give a review of it here. What I will do instead is tell you the story of the ‘Teachers Reserve’. And how this business justifies an ultra price premium.

I asked the bar tender for something sweet, to help take the edge off after a heavy day – something night cap-ish. He said;

“I know just the thing. The Teachers Reserve. For those moments when you’ve done all you can, when the days been hard, and it’s time to reflect, quietly and possibly have a conversation in your own head. It’s not exactly social, but poignant.”

He then made up the drink and presented it in a manner which will make sense when you see the photo essay below. He furtively passed me the book, while he looked in the other direction – as if to say: ‘let this be our little secret’.

Classic theatre at transaction. I was delighted, and I didn’t mind paying the $25 for it.

Pop culture knowledge

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

Pop culture knowledge used to be about knowing who was atop of the leader board:

the top of the billboard chart
the number 1 movie
the best selling pair of jeans
the best selling athletic shoe
the best picture at the Academy awards
the most popular celebrity endorser
… popularity contest X

This knowledge was a quick reference asset. It was worth keeping tabs on.

Pop culture has changed.

Now it’s about knowing what’s coming next. Knowing who’s already here is of little value. Anyone can find that out in a moments notice, it’s public and omnipresent on the web. Knowing who or what will be hot 6 months from now is where the currency is. And that takes constant assessment and curation of the content. That is an art in itself.

60 seconds on the web

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

The world moves fast. When we we’re unconnected the speed of change went unnoticed. Now that we all have digital footprints, we can track all that happens. This amazing and statistically rich infographic is solid reminder of the world we live in. It’s also very cool that most of these business are startups that aren’t even teenagers yet. I’ve pulled out the numbers and got the pic below.

60 seconds on the web:

12,000+ new ads posted on Craigslist
370,000+ minutes of voice calls on Skype
98,000+ tweets
320+ new twitter accounts
100+ new Linkedin accounts
6,600+ photos uploaded to Flickr
50+ wordpress CMS downloads & 125+ plugins
695,000 facebook status updates, 80,000 wall posts and 510,040 comments
1,700 firefox downloads
694,445 google searches
168 million emails sent (of which 92% is spam)
60+ new blogs & 1500+ new blog posts
70+ new domains are registered
600+ new Youtube videos are uploaded. 25+ hours in duration
150+ questions are asked in Question forums
13,000+ iPhone apps are downloaded
20,000 new posts on Tumblr.
I new definition added to Urban Dictionary
1,600+ reads on Scribd.

And here is what it looks like:

Change the currency

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I heard a great little story today about how to overcome barriers when pitching business, changing minds or influencing in general.

Changing worldviews is hard, often impossible. But there are two possible routes we can take when trying:

Route (A) We can try and change peoples view on a topic- change the unchangeable.

Route (B) We can change the currency. – This route is invariably more successful because it re-directs peoples perspective.

Car sales people do it all the time. Once the negotiation is close to reaching a stale mate on price, they then bring in the optional extras: Items removed from price. Although they do have a value, it changes the view point of the negotiation. It’s a change in currency. And the discussions can progress to a close.

When trying to reach an agreement, or change a mindset, we need to re-invent the currency of what is being discussed.

Loyalty Schemes Vs Gamification

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

In many ways Gamification is an evolution of the long lived Loyalty Scheme. But so much better, and the evidence exists even at the simplest level – the words themselves.

Loyalty Scheme: Firstly the word loyalty seems very one way. It was / is as if the company expects us to be loyal to them. And although one might argue that loyalty is a two way street, the second word of the phrase is the giveaway – ‘Scheme’. Yep, sounds like some kind of a trick to me. A scheme to make us believe we are getting a good deal, when in truth we are just a number on some kind of cost / benefit analysis spreadsheet. Intuitively, schemes feel like there is a winner and a loser.

Gamificiation: Games are fun. We spend most of our childhood playing them and find as many excuses as possible to play them as adults. ‘Who wants to come to the football this Friday night?’ A game needs at least two willing parties or organisations to play. Sometimes we can collaborate and form teams and clubs and divisions and theme songs and have awards nights and weekend getaways. We can celebrate wins together and lament the losses, either way we like to return to the game and try and win, or even better our own score, although it’s collaborative, it’s also personal. The game is the ‘thing’, not the result of it. Games contrive all of the important human emotions that make our hearts beat.

Play is human. Great games even turn into industries.

Yep, it feels to me that gamification facilitated via Moore’s law is here to stay.

Bees can't fly

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

A popular story in science folklore is that the aerodynamics of bees suggest that they should not be able to fly. It was hotly debated in at a time when human flight via aircraft was being mastered (around the 1930’s). Because physicists and aerodynamic specialists had started to develop theory of ‘predictable flight’ with machinery, they believed their knowledge applied to all forms of flight.

(Hand drawn by Sarah Cameron)

Of course bees do fly. A bee is very small. And, at that size, air acts as a much more viscous fluid than it does for airplanes and helicopters. So the laws of aerodynamics are quite different for bees and other insects. But it took some time before this was understood and that new theoretical models were developed relative to the size of the thing of flight.

The point for entrepreneurs is important, especially at a time when technology is challenging existing business models. So the next time someone tries to put the kybosh on your new idea or startup remember that based on yesterdays knowledge, bees can’t fly.

The human movement, movement

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Steve Sammartino

I was really impressed by how some of the smarter Skiing resort operators are using GEO-locating to enable a deep interaction with their customers. What some of the resorts have done is used their new electronic ski lift tagging systems as a social engagement tool. Skiers can register on-line via the resorts facebook page so they can compare how many kilometers, ski runs, hours they do on the mountain for the day, week season and compete amongst friends. It’s even got a nice gaming element to it. It’s a nice iteration taking ideas from the likes of run keeper. You can read more here about what ski resorts are doing to tech-up.

The thing that is clear to me is that there is a human movement, movement. It’s so much more than companies being able to track what people are doing, it’s actually about companies creating forums where we can actually track ourselves. So we can know more about ourselves and change the way we move and interact with others and personally. It takes away the privacy concerns, and moves us into a space where we co-opt information sharing for mutual benefit.

The question entreprneurs and marketers should be thinking about is, how can we help our people track their movement to get more out of when they move. It’s only just the start.