When doing some financial research recently, I came across a bank that I had never heard of before: Ally Bank.
I was impressed with how frank and human the language on their site was. I was even more impressed with the interest rates and terms they had for their banking products.
Thinking that this was too good to be true, I decided to do some digging. Turns out Ally is the newly-rebranded GMAC. GMAC as in General Motors, as in the bank that’s received two government bailouts.
I also then made the connection to the sponsor of one of my regular podcasts, NPR’s Planet Money. Well, the other shoe finally dropped, and Planet Money decided to do a program on GMAC last week as they’ve gone back to the government for a third bailout.
Kudos to the team for tackling the tough issue of critically reporting on a major sponsor.
A few weeks ago my wife had a bit of an accident in the kitchen with a cutting knife. As we quickly took action to slow the bleeding I scrambled to look online to see if the wound was serious enough to warrant a visit to the emergency room for stitches.
I landed on About.com’s First Aid site. And after reading some informative articles I clicked to watch this video on how to dress a wound. Would you believe that I first had to sit through an ad spot? The video is currently playing ad-free, but I’m not sure if that’s because they caught this monumental fail or if the campaign had wrapped.
By now you’ve probably seen the horrible videos that Microsoft is using to promote its grassroots Windows 7 Launch Party effort.
There’s so much wrong with the video, that it’s not even worth getting into.
While the marketing is embarrassing, the program seems like it’s gaining traction. I went to the Launch Party site and saw that they have over 10K parties planned in the US alone. I read through some of the user comments and people seem genuinely excited about this ... or maybe it’s Windows 7 that they’re excited about.
Free software and a little geek cred can go a long way.
You’re walking down a city street, stomach grumbling, looking for some place to eat. You come upon two restaurants next to each other - one is mostly full, one is mostly empty. Which one seems the safer bet?
Our instincts are to think that the one with more people must have the better food, service, or both. Or maybe it’s just a better place to be seen at. If you chose to eat at the crowded establishment, you’re very presence there is marketing to the next passerby an inferred value proposition. This business is in fact extracting a service from you.
The same holds true if you walk around with a Starbucks cup, wear an Ed Hardy t-shirt, or are seen walking into a Barnes & Noble. Your interaction with these brands endorses and markets them.
So why aren’t brands paying us for this valuable service? Or put more practically, why aren’t their products and services appropriately “discounted” to factor in the time that we put in to market them?
This is the premise of #sixweeks, a recently publicized experiment conducted over six weeks in London by digital strategist Paul McCrudden. McCrudden recorded the time he spent interacting with brands. And after six weeks he began invoicing these businesses for the time he spent with these brands at a fee based on his salary, prorated and greatly discounted.
McCrudden’s mission as he puts it is to “challenge the basic assumption that consumers are subservient to brands.”
I get that McCrudden is being a bit dramatic here to make a point. But the truth is that his basic assumption is all wrong. Subservience isn’t part of the equation, but relationships are. And like any relationship both sides give and both take.
We want to be seen shopping at that store or wearing that handbag or drinking that cup of coffee or using that Mac laptop. Our brands define us - who we are, who we want to be. There’s significant value being delivered to the consumer beyond the actual product or service - it’s status, identity, comfort, security ... the list goes on.
And if brands don’t continue to deliver, to listen, to improve, to care - we take our business elsewhere.
McCrudden’s premise only makes a bit of sense if we are giving business to brands that we care nothing about - it assumes the worst on both sides.
Knowing that the wrong response to McCrudden’s efforts would be a PR nightmare, businesses have started to pony up cash, vouchers, or both. I mean, who wants to go on record looking like they don’t value their customers. Even though that isn’t really the point here.
My favorite response is from the eatery Pret a Manger. Founder Julian Metcalfe paid McCrudden’s fee, but also added in the cost of the food, the time he thinks it took for McCrudden to do the paperwork, and “a nominal sum to cover interest”.
In a response dripping with courtesy, Metcalfe writes…
“You are of course, absolutely right. The time spent in my cafes will greatly help the profitability of our company. I have asked our accounts department to issue a cheque today as I see no reason why you should be kept waiting. I’m sorry to have to pay you by cheque as I am aware of the effort and time it will take you to pay this into the bank.”
This Ad Age video talks about how advertisers are now setting their sights on using video game engines to create real-time interactive spots.
Zoic Studios recently created one of said spots for the release of Kill Zone 2 that was broadcasted on the Sony Playstation Network. Playstation viewers were able to manipulate camera angles, view uncomposited layers, and hear commentary - all rendered in real-time.
Technologically speaking, this is huge. How effective is the execution though? Visually, it doesn’t quite do it for me. And I’d imagine that for an audience that spends a lot of time “living” in these virtual worlds, their reaction was probably the same.
That said, this is an early breakthrough. I definitely think there’s potential in the medium. Especially when you think of this stuff coupled with Microsoft’s Project Natal technology. And that includes non-game consumer products. For instance, imagine being able to “get inside” a car and zoom into the dashboard on your HD TV.
It was interesting to hear Zoic co-founder Loni Peristere talk about the creation process. He believes, and I agree, that soon the platforms for creating these experiences will be more in the hands of storytellers than technologists. The technology will be far enough along that creatives can pull from vast digital libraries.
There’s also sure to be ground-level democratized innovation on this platform as the tools become commonplace.
A few weeks ago my wife had a bit of an accident in the kitchen with a cutting knife. As we quickly took action to slow the bleeding I scrambled to look online to see if the wound was serious enough to warrant a visit to the emergency room for stitches.