jan chipchase- the life of a digital nomad

Influx Insights — 2008-04-11T21:53:23Z

Nice piece from The Economist that follows the life of Nokia's Jan Chipchase (see our previous post)

It's a film that uses photos and a phone recording.

Jan offers his observations on technology in his work life and life in general.

Posted by Ed Cotton

broad utility in a banner

Influx Insights — 2008-01-11T15:59:25Z

Federated Media has spent some time educating the ad industry on the power and potential of blogs and their authors.

Recently, they've been developing content that goes beyond the banner and utilizes their blog network. An interesting example of this is a recent campaign for Toshiba laptops that's been running on the FM Network, sites like Boing Boing.

It's a simple banner that allows you to ask a laptop question and get a reponse from experts or the community in general. The linkage to the brand's positioning is through the notion of "experts", Toshiba being the laptop experts.

Browse around the site and you will find answers to all kinds of laptop questions and importantly, they don't all "plug" Toshiba laptops.

It's an interesting idea and a good example of going beyond the banner to create a branded utility.

My only criticism of the idea is about its uniqueness. The problem for Toshiba is the web is awash with tips and advice for laptop owners or prospects, it's a hard area to "own".

However, the idea of link ad content to expert content is a really smart one and it's just a matter of time before someone does something amazingly creative and useful by linking the two together.

Posted by Ed Cotton

can gateway make a comeback?

Influx Insights — 2007-05-16T13:54:21Z

Gateway is gingerly coming back, stating that it's going to place more emphasis on its consumer business, recognizing laptops are style statements for consumers and promising to work with the world’s best design houses to create new product.

However, Gateway’s stock currently stands at $1.75.

Once the darling of Wall St and for the business press Gateway was once a brand that could seemingly do no wrong

"A Brand is a promise, and you have to keep your promises. There's no difference between what we sell and who we are." At Gateway 2000, Jim Taylor practices what he and his partner Watts Wacker preach

Fast Company – December 2006

This Fast Company piece covered a couple of interesting topics in the conversation with Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor.

1. They saw a social networking future, way ahead of time

Q: You've come to Gateway to help position the company for the next round of competition. What will it take to win in the future?

The future of the personal computer is as a tool to connect what Watts and I call "communities of strangers." These are people linked together based on common ideas and values -- shared identity -- rather than social proximity. This is an absolutely revolutionary change. By using the computer to find people who share your views, you can live in whatever kind of world you want. Reality is no longer a defined constant. It is a choice.

2. Speed isn’t all you need to compete.

Q: What else will it take for computer companies to prosper in the future?

“Winning companies will help people maintain their personal rates of change. The speed at which computer technology changes -- the speed at which Gateway operates is unreal. We change parts to the line every three hours. We change product configurations every three days. We change prices every day. If memory chip prices drop, our prices drop. If we get unexpected production efficiency, our prices drop.

That's why I love the direct channel. We talk to 100,000 people a day -- people calling to order a computer, shopping around, looking for tech support. Our Web site gets 1.1 million hits per day. The time it takes for an idea to enter this organization, get processed, and then go to customers for feedback is down to minutes. We've designed the company around speed and feedback.”

Gateway’s revenues collapsed dramatically from $9.6 billion in 2006 to $4.6 billion in 2002. With a booming PC market in the late 90s, there was enough business for everyone, but when it contracted, pricing pressures meant Gateway wasn’t in a position to compete with Dell. Going head to head with Dell, trying to compete with Dell’s ad spending and breaking away from its own direct model to build retail stores was disastrous.

Today company revenues stand at $3.9 billion, brand awareness is 96%, it has the famous “cow” boxes, they are the no 3 US computer brand and have a 13% share of US laptop sales. It’s a long road back, but it’s not an impossibility.

For all nostalgic ad industry folks out there, the same Fast Company’s December 1996 issue also contained a piece on St Luke’s, entitled The Ad Agency to End All Ad Agencies. Seems like December 1996's Fast Company wasn't the "lucky" issue.

Influx Insights Tag Feed: laptops

jan chipchase- the life of a digital nomad

broad utility in a banner

can gateway make a comeback?