How will watches survive?

Walkman, one of the most important products of my high school years, was replaced by first discman, then mp3 players and now with mobile phones including mp3 players in them. So I wonder what will happen to watches. Personally, wearing a watch is almost inevitable for me because I’m simply used to raising up my wrist and giving a look at it regularly, but of course this doesn’t mean that I won’t instead take off my phone from my pocket to look at the time. What do you think: will mobile phones soon make watches extinct? I think, as it has already started to be observed, the young generation which is more tech-savvy and which favors practicality more, will replace watches with mobile phones. So, the main consumers for watchers will be the traditional ones and those who wear a watch as a status symbol. With this respect, I think premium brands will see good profits again in the future, but the more mainstream brands should find ways to be competitive against mobile phones.

Let’s think about the opposite case now: could watches render mobile phones obsolete? Apparently, this is what LG is aiming to do by its “LG Watch Phone” that it is going to be launched soon.

The main characteristics and benefit of this watch phone is described as being “coupled with a blue tooth headset, the LG Watch Phone will allow for convenient communications with the luxury of wearing a stunning piece of jewelry and without the annoyance of having one more thing in your pocket”. I think that this watch phone can steal a bit of market share from the more traditional segment of watch customers, as they would like to have this “more cool” watch. However, in terms of functionality, I don’t think this watch phone can still replace mobile phones. After all, with the 3G penetration of today and the 4G of soon-to-come, it is crucial to have a big screen for internet access and this simply cannot fit on your arm.

All in all, I think the watch industry cannot win over the mobile phones in terms of functionality, but they can only do so in terms of design and luxury appeal, so from what I spontaneously think of, maybe companies like Bang & Olufsen and Alessi can be the survivors in the watch industry.

Is being "cool" the right strategy?

I’m quite late in writing this entry as I found out that the launch date of the product and the associated marketing campaign date back to 4 years ago, but actually I read about this marketing campaign being presented as a “success case” in a the November 2009 issue of a magazine and I have my doubts about that so I want to share my opinion with you. OK, here they are: Volkswagen Fox and the Fox Hotel.

Fox is a city car produced and designed by Volkswagen and sold in Europe since 2005. It is produced as a three-door or a five-door hatchback. In the European market, the Fox replaced the Lupo city car and at a far cheaper price.



As part of the promotion for the launch of the Volkswagen Fox, a hotel in central Copenhagen was totally redesigned by 21 different artists. Each of the 61 rooms is a unique artwork in itself, and Hotel FOX still exists today, years after the actual launch is over.


Personally, I like the designs of the rooms very much, as far as I saw the photos of many of them on the Internet. They surely can give a very fun and unique experience to the hosts. On the other hand, I consider this marketing effort to be somewhat inconsistent with the brand promise and also inefficient in terms of reaching the target customers.


What does the VW Fox car promise?: As it is stated on its website, “it’s small enough to nip round the city, yet roomy enough to sit four comfortably. It’s big on style and big on economy. But the biggest surprise is its price – it’s smaller than you think” and on the picture of the car, it writes “Fox Urban” on the number plate. So, from this, I get two words: Urban and economy. In terms of giving the urban feeling, the hotel goes, let’s say, half way. Having been designed by actual urban artists from differing fields of art, the rooms are indeed in urban spirit; but then why are they all gathered up in a place where only a certain portion of the urban population has reach to. After all, the visitors may be those who are just tourists in Copenhagen, those who have heard/read about the hotel and are there for the experience or a random mix, which is probably of lower share in the visitor base. Even if less creative, I think it might have been better if VW used the investment not for this hotel, but spread the total investments into several cities across Europe, where the real urban culture could have been spread more massively. So, let’s say, it could have just parked a bunch of Fox cars in central urban areas and not directly next to them, but on the roads coming to that place, held some urban art and design activities which would be performance based. So, this way, the excitement would be spread more evenly across different cities and be customized according to those cities urban elements. Keeping the idea just in a hotel rather can make it more elite, but not so “urban” in spirit.

Let’s come to the second brand promise: economy. The car is communicated to be small in price as well, but as I check the hotel prices as of today, I see that the regular price for one adult per night in a medium room for this weekend is 187Euros and the range of prices goes up as one prefers either larger or different styled rooms. I have the sense that a visitor who can afford this price, either just to have a hotel room or to get a taste of this Fox experience, would consider cars of a higher segment, both in terms of size and price, or maybe I’ve got a wrong sense…

(at the end, I’d like to stress that I’ve written this entry for the sole purpose of thinking in marketing terms, but not to criticize a company that I actually appreciate!)

"...being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing..."

I started out creating this blog with the purpose of stressing out some ideas that I find worth thinking on in terms of marketing. However, these days, marketing shares its position in my lists of interests with trying to learn Italian. Today, I found out a wonderful poem by Pablo Neruda that I liked a lot (as all his poems I've read so far) and here I want to share it with you both in Italian and in English; mind Neruda!


Lentamente muore

Lentamente muore chi diventa schiavo dell'abitudine, ripetendo ogni
giorno gli stessi percorsi, chi non cambia la marca, chi non
rischia e cambia colore dei vestiti, chi non parla a chi non conosce.

Muore lentamente chi evita una passione, chi preferisce il nero su
bianco e i puntini sulle "i" piuttosto che un insieme di emozioni,
proprio quelle che fanno brillare gli occhi, quelle che fanno di uno
sbadiglio un sorriso, quelle che fanno battere il cuore davanti
all'errore e ai sentimenti.

Lentamente muore chi non capovolge il tavolo, chi è infelice sul
lavoro, chi non rischia la certezza per l'incertezza, per inseguire un
sogno, chi non si permette almeno una volta nella vita di fuggire ai
consigli sensati. Lentamente muore chi non viaggia, chi non legge, chi
non ascolta musica, chi non trova grazia in se stesso. Muore lentamente
chi distrugge l'amor proprio, chi non si lascia aiutare; chi passa i
giorni a lamentarsi della propria sfortuna o della pioggia incessante.

Lentamente muore chi abbandona un progetto prima di iniziarlo, chi non
fa domande sugli argomenti che non conosce, chi non risponde quando gli
chiedono qualcosa che conosce.

Evitiamo la morte a piccole dosi, ricordando sempre che essere vivo
richiede uno sforzo di gran lunga maggiore del semplice fatto di
respirare.
Soltanto l'ardente pazienza porterà al raggiungimento di una splendida
felicità.

Pablo Neruda

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Die Slowly

He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience,
dies slowly.

He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones "it’s" rather than a bundle of emotions, the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face of mistakes and feelings,
dies slowly.

He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy,
who is unhappy at work,
who does not risk certainty for uncertainty,
to thus follow a dream,
those who do not forego sound advice at least once in their lives,
die slowly.

He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.

He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped,
who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck, about the rain that never stops,
dies slowly.

He or she who abandon a project before starting it, who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn't know, he or she who don't reply when they are asked something they do know,
die slowly.

Let's try and avoid death in small doses,
reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.

Only a burning patience will lead
to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

Pablo Neruda

Earning money from your heartache ?!?!?!

I think the creators of the site http://www.exboyfriendjewelry.com/ are simply courageous. They’ve created a site dedicated to “helping” individuals who still have jewelry from their “ex” but don't want to give it back to them. So here on this website, people can sell or put into auction items left from their “ex”s without revealing neither their own nor their ex partners’ identities.

Maybe some of you have thought about this ideabut had tried to repress it or were just not “transparent” enough to give it a voice? Well, finally some people have done this! And in their own words, they “want to keep things fun and cathartic”. The website is designed around this theme in many ways. First of all, the pre-requisite to post any item for sale is to share the personal story about it. This way, the site is able to differentiate itself from other auction sites by being a gathering place of the broken hearted ones who are after a little touch of humor in life as well as looking to share their experiences mutually with others. A sub-section of the site is a blog where users can post about their ideas about anything (although mainly about “women stuff” like balancing work and relationships, kids, etc). So, they are at the same time trying to create a social community, which obviously is invaluable, also backing this up with their presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well.

No matter how you might feel about your ended relationship, you may not come to accept the idea of making fun about it. For this reason, having an emotional appeal is not sufficient to attract the whole target group. You should also take into account those people who are always more rational in their relationships and also in the “post period” and in my opinion, this website does this in a perfect way by directly referring to rationality in their slogan of “You don’t want it. He can’t have it back”.

It seems like the biggest limitation of the website is its address. Even though any user of any gender can sell the items of his/her “ex”, still the active users as well as the other visitors of the site are likely to be women. In my opinion, the way to overcome this problem may be through viral marketing of the site, emcompassing both genders where the main motive should be about “rational survivors”.

PS. The timing of this blog entry and more importantly the motive of my writing it has nothing to do with what I think about my ex-boyfriends! The only explanation is my marketing-wise interest in the idea :-)

Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry give us the "SixthSense"

Here is the highest level of technology I've seen (wish I had seen, but actually "I've read about") so far when we think of marketing applications.

Anything I'd say regarding this incredible device and its genius inventor would sound superficial, so just watch the demo video and try to think about the new horizons:

Brand-consistent technology

In my previous entry, I mentioned that consumers are highly affected by endorsements from other consumers. Taking this into account and adding to it the contemporary lifestyles and the recent technological advancements, I want to write about an iPhone application built by MasterCard, which I find a very strong communication tool developed by the company. It is namely “the Priceless Picks iPhone Application” (http://www.priceless.com/). As Cheryl Guerin -SVP, global digital marketing at MasterCard Worldwide- puts it; “This is an evolution of the 'Priceless picks' promotion that has been on the Web site since 2006. Consumers love to see other consumers' opinions and that impacts the decisions that they've made, we've seen it on the Web for years and now we are seeing it more in mobile. This is about leveraging what consumers already love to do.”

The application uses GPS technology to provide on-site solutions to fulfill users’ social needs by providing local deals such as for shopping and dining. Users can share (read, write and also send what’s already written their friends via e-mail) personalized information about places they like or they come to think they might be interested in. The application also includes special offers from ShopLocal, a partner of MasterCard. So, as a whole, the application succeeds in combining user-generated content and partner-generated offers.

I think this application has the potential to, first, push MasterCard’s brand image to a higher level within the eyes of its target customers, by giving the impression of a brand that cares about improving the social lives of people; and even to increase the number of customers (since if it succeeds to be a new look at portable social lives, it surely will have a huge word-of-mouth support as well). The success will come from the combination of:

• what it offers to the users;
• how it offers (via leading-edge technology that also takes a share of today’s social marketing);
• a strong product name likely to have high awareness (“Priceless Picks”);
• brand-fit (as MasterCard’s promise is to enable its customers to have / to reach priceless experiences);
• other supporting communication activities, such as the television campaign that highlights the functions of the application.

C’mon, hollrr!

We use brands that we have “heard of” before, either that the brands have achieved strong and well-known equities or that they were recommended to us by a friend or an acquaintance. For the latter case, it is crucial to get the conversation going. This is why both the relatively less-known brands, as well as strong brands invest in "word of mouth". Along with the increased effect of online communications, companies have started investing more and more into “word of mouse”. Word of mouse can be generated through various means such as online forums, chat rooms, e-mail based buzz marketing, product review sites and, especially these days, through social networking sites. It is a way of advertising that is unpaid and with very strong credibility that otherwise –through conventional paid advertising- cannot be bought.

Enough said, let’s come to the new business (established this year) that stricked me the most in the past months, with both its business idea and with the continuous social media links they are building. It is: http://hollrr.com/ . Its idea is rewarding consumers for promoting (“hollrring”) the products they love. Quoting the managers of Hollrr from Hollrr blog, “Hollrr is about building community. It’s about connecting Tribes of people who are passionate about small companies and products. It’s about connecting those Tribes with the Entrepreneur behind those products. It’s about recognizing Mavens who are great at spotting awesome new products.” I will not write how the website is run, but suggest to check it out yourself and get a feeling of it.

Hollrr rewards both consumers and companies. By giving early adopters of a product a chance to speak out their views on the product and form tribes, Hollrr gives consumers the psychological reward of being an influencer on others. This, I think, is a total empowerment of the consumer. Consumer feels the power that s/he can have a say on what the product fulfills, does not fulfill, how it should be modified, etc. along with all sorts of personal feelings / thoughts about it. Another huge reward is achieving reputation and admiration by others. By spotting great products earlier than other people, “Hollrrers” can find the chance to socially signal their trendy attitudes. The site succeeds to further motivate this by letting users follow their favorite “Hollrrer”s. There is also the financial reward awaiting the consumer, which may even come secondary after the psychological ones I mentioned and it is described on the site, so I will not write about it in detail. Hollrr also offers incalculable benefits to the companies which cannot allocate a sufficiently high advertisement budget. Here, especially relatively small sized companies benefit a lot, since they get the chance to have their product heard by large groups as long as their product is good enough to get a certain amount of tribe members.

Consumers are able to promote a new product to others via their blogs, Twitter (http://twitter.com/hollrr) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Hollrr?ref=search&sid=535438423.3711483283..1 ).

Hollrr has also created a blog (http://hollrr.tumblr.com/) the function of which is stated as: “to keep track of what’s happening in Hollrr”, but it does not only give information about the website and the company, but at the same time continues its business model here as well, for example they post “this week’s hot Hollrrers” so as to reward its users in a way (as always!).

Well, this post sounded a bit like the advertisement of a new advertising platform, but trust me, I wrote all this stuff just because I’m amazed by what this site offers to both consumers and companies and how it is also able to mash up a simple style of “word of mouse” with other social networking sites.

11,030 fans for 3 words?!

“Mind the gap” is an announcement used in the London underground stations to warn passengers about the distance between the train and the platform, but it’s not just a warning announcement, it’s now one of the symbols of London that one can find on various apparel; one can recognize and know its “meaning” despite not having been to London at all (like me!) and a symbol that, as of today, has 11,030 fans on Facebook!!! I checked what all those fans had to say and strangely enough, most of them took the time to write or rather re-write what others had already written, that is, how the phrase goes like in the announcement and how it reminded them of London. A repeated phrase receiving repeated fan posts, still it’s not boring and people stick to it and think of London. I perceive marketing in a similar way; a good marketing idea sticks to your mind, lets you make associations and leads you to the intended target. Here in my blog, I’ll be sharing with you things that I find marketing-wise stimulating and I’d like you to “mind the idea”, be it positively or negatively...

Nothing complicated, just M2Y!

Hello everyone!
Considering that it has been more than 10 years now that individuals and companies started creating blogs, I am quite a late entrant in this “business”. In addition to many roles blogs have, such as being personal online diaries, I guess you would agree that they are also amazing business fields due to having strong marketing impacts. In my case, the aim is more of what I’d call M2Y (me-to-you) marketing. I’m an ex-employee, a current master’s student and a forever enthusiast in the field of marketing. I find it enriching to read, think and discuss in this field, so I decided to share some of the things I find interesting with the readers of my blog. Although I’m highly interested in literature, too, the tone I’ll use will be rather simple as is going to be the appearance of my blog. Would it be too much if I admit that I know nothing about blog design tools? Well, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”, so let’s start!