Influx Insights Tag Feed: communication

what if products could twitter?

Influx Insights — 2008-04-16T14:17:55Z

There's an interesting story on Textually about kettles that send messages.

A group that represents the elderly in Australia is looking at some technology that can send a message from a kettle.

The thought being that every time the elderly person makes a cup of tea a message is sent to their children, letting them know that they are OK.

I think the idea of thinking laterally about how information generated by a product can have additional uses is really smart.

Then there's the thought of our products telling us when they need things; cars needing servicing is something we have already, refrigerators needing replenishing is something that's often talked about.

As chip technology gets ever smaller and cheaper, it's possible that most things will have the ability to share information with their owners. Even something as simple as deodorant bottle could send you a "money off next purchase" message when it's running low.

Hopefully, not applications will be as crass and promotional and its worth thinking about what a product might say to its owner if it could talk and how some of those things might be useful.

This might lead to a whole new world for Twitter.

Posted by Ed Cotton

the death of the core proposition

Influx Insights — 2008-01-13T18:01:23Z

Mohamed Iqbal is a Senior Planning Director at Ogilvy in Bangalore, he is also a member of our Planning for Good team.

A couple of years back, he wrote a paper that connected The Long Tail to brand communication. It won him a top prize from WPP.

He has now distilled the paper down into a Change This manifesto and it makes a great read.

The essence of his argument is that for years brands and agencies have followed a disciplined approach to uncovering and communicating ONE thing about a brand.

Mohamed believes this thinking is now flawed because of the widespread availablity of free and cheap media. He doesn't suggest that it's wrong to have one lead proposition, it's just that you can have a number of others and target specific groups with them.

In addition, armed with real-time data, you can easily calculate the ones that aren't working and the ones that are.

One really interesting point he makes is that agencies believe when they launch a new campaign, they are making a clean break with the past. It's a pre-internet notion, today, nothing is forgotten because every message ever created is now accessible and informs our brand understanding.

Finally, he recommends letting the consumers work it out for themselves, put the messages out there and they will find the nuances that work for them.

For all the planners out there, this suggests there's a new way to work and that our briefs needs to change to reflect the opportunity. The world has certainly gotten more complex because we can tell more stories, so the critical component becomes, media, because we need to know where we can tell these stories.

Posted by Ed Cotton

microblogging

Influx Insights — 2007-06-15T13:12:09Z

Interesting presentation from Jyri Engestrom of Jaiku about "Microblogging".
A new form of communication that's all about regular contact with your network. Simple messages and information sent evey hour. This is obviously far simpler and easier than blogging and an interesting alternative to help people stay connected. Similar to Twitter.

Posted by Ed Cotton

youtube talks human

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T18:08:22Z

YouTube explains itself using its own technology.

It's a great example of getting beyond corporatespeak- real people explaining things in a way we can all understand, not hiding behind a product or a press release.

Via Beet.tv

do your customers want canned or candid conversation?

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T18:07:45Z

Over at Gristmill, there's a post discussing the response of GM's Bob Lutz,to a form letter that chastizes the company for its lack of progress in alternative or hybrid technologies.

Lutz's response is priceless.

It's candid and real.

From: bob.lutz@gm.com
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 3:50 PM
Subject: Re: Alternative Fueled Cars

Instead of just copying that same stupid message that I have received at least one thousand times in identical form (don't you folks have any creative drive?), why didn't you use your energy to research GM's announced major effort on the range-extended Chevrolet "Volt" EV, as well as our announcement of a plug-in hybrid version of the upcoming Saturn "Vue"? Some recognition of how much and how fast we are moving in these areas would be a lot more motivating than bombarding us with that hopelessly-outdated standard letter. Thank you for thinking of us!

Just because "new marketing" has "touchy feely" buzzwords like "relationship" and "conversation", doesn't mean that responses always have to be perfectly measured and controlled.

Being truly real and human, means taking the guard down once in a while and stepping away from the lawyers who might tell you otherwise.

If the future is about two-way communication, companies need to be prepared stand up for themselves, this doesn't mean bullying the consumer with responses from anonymous corporate spokespeople, but instead injecting some candour into your human conversations.