Nov
24
2009
0

When Other Companies do your Research & Development

Recently Twitter lauched the “Lists” feature which allows you to form lists of users that you may/maynot follow. The ugly secret of the web 2.0 industry is that Twitter has been extremely bad at corralling feedback from its own users. HootSuite came out with the “Groups” feature months ahead of Twitter, and now that Twitter’s rolling out the same feature (with a different name), it’s forcing HootSuite to degrade it’s own product and instruct it’s users to use Twitter’s functionality.

This is the danger of being a leading edge company that builds atop another company’s technology. Sometimes you’ll have to backtrack when the bigger company decides to “steal your idea”. But it should not keep HootSuite or other leading companies from innovating and trying something new. Precisely the reason that they came out with the “Groups” feature more than a year ago, is why many of it’s users (including me) started using the product.  It’s their culture of innovation that keeps ‘em coming back. Good to keep in mind even in a sharktank of an economic environment.

On the other side of the coin – if you don’t have a system for actively soliciting feedback and suggestions from your customers/ users then you need to start right now. Your customers want to see you succeed. You just need to let them.

Posted via email from Overlinked

Written by LP in: Business |
Nov
13
2009
0

6 different ways to attract customers

Credit where due, I was browsing http://www.notorious-rob.com/ and came across this graphic that Rob found in @issue: the online journal of business & design (why had I not found this magazine before!).  Turns out they’re citing it from a book that’s coming out by Marty Neumeier, who has delivered some very interesting presentations before. 

Anyhow, this graphic seeks to compare the different disciplines of “wooing a customer”. Hilarious:

Besides this, I did happen upon a great video that encompasses many of the strategic marketing shifts, a’ la Marty Neumeier:

Posted via email from Overlinked

Written by LP in: Business |
Nov
12
2009
0

Best Twitter App

Came across an interesting poll that shows people’s “favorite” twitter desktop app.

This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the “Best” twitter app :)

Posted via email from Overlinked

Written by LP in: Business |
Nov
09
2009
0

Hyundai shows the way out of a Recession

Something that many of us in the advertising space have been saying for a while now… that brands need to spend hard in a recession to distance and define themselves as the economy recovers.  Those that run & hide with their budgets will see their bottom lines shrink accordingly.  Ad Age is now rewarding those brands that have adopted this proactive recession strategy, naming Hyundai and Wal-Mart as the top brands in their Marketer of the Year 2009 awards.

Now, will the rest of the economy wake up?

Posted via email from Overlinked

Written by LP in: Business |
Nov
04
2009
0

First Post on…. Is the Market Really Free?

As the first post of a new blog, I wanted to assert that our intention on this blog will hopefully be to outline different perspectives on world economics and hopefully by the end of it (few years?) we will have learned something.  I consider myself to be an armchair economist – so invite anyone else who would like to discuss these topics to comment and contact us on the blog, if you’d like to be a contributor, please let me know.

I recently heard a few interesting assertions that I want to bring up as a first topic of discussion.  Libertarians would assert that the market wants to be free, and we should let it.  Another source (that might post on this blog at a later time), asserted that a libertarian attitude is shared by most top government officials :
“ the director of the CFTC (responsible for regulating the derivatives market) warned Alan Greenspan that the derivatives market was ripe for massive fraud due to a lack of transparency, he responded “the market will sort it all out” and “there is nothing wrong with a little fraud” because it was part of he market process.“
This seems to be an extreme attitude, that I’m not even entirely sure is a libertarian attitude – namely one that accepts fraud in the market as being a part of the market process.  Could this be considered to be a part of even a variant of a libertarian “free market” viewpoint?  Or is this just a renegade official justifying inactions through clever ideology?

Posted via email from Assume A Can Opener

Written by LP in: Business |
Nov
03
2009
0

Virgin Atlantic’s app for flying virgins

I’m not sure if this is for real, but Virgin Atlantic released an iphone app that supposedly assists flyers who are afraid to fly.  See screenshot below. Is a computer device ever going to take the place of someone sitting next to you on the same flight telling you the same thing?  Credibility goes to the human being who has a real story to tell.  Not an iphone app.

Posted via email from Overlinked

Written by LP in: Business |
Nov
03
2009
0

Post-recession Consumerism

John Gerzema is the co-author of the book, The Brand Bubble and gave a great talk on TED, where he outlines a barrage of great points, not exclusive to the fact that 80% of the US population was born after WWII, so in effect this recession is our “Great depression”, and the ethics of the connected life are affecting our identities as consumers.  One of his slides focuses on a shift of consumers to de-leverage themselves (just as banks and companies are de-leveraging), so they are finding ways to do that paying by debit vs. credit (as a recent VISA study had found). “Declasse consumption” essentially is the new strategy meaning a more thoughtful approach to what is purchased, focusing on high quality or high value goods as opposed to quantity / popularity of goods/services.

What does this mean for the average brand or business?  Focus on marketing yourselves to provide value to your customers.  Frito Lay is used as an example by John Gerzema in that they found that most of their customers had more money at the beginning of the month as opposed to the end of the month (paycheck cycles), so they staggared their products offering larger bags of chips at the beginning of the month on store endcaps to match their customers’ budgets.  Interesting way of thinking about product placement strategy.

Posted via email from Overlinked

Written by LP in: Business |
Nov
03
2009
0

Post-recession Consumerism

John Gerzema is the co-author of the book, The Brand Bubble and gave a great talk on TED, where he outlines a barrage of great points, not exclusive to the fact that 80% of the US population was born after WWII, so in effect this recession is our “Great depression”, and the ethics of the connected life are affecting our identities as consumers.  One of his slides focuses on a shift of consumers to de-leverage themselves (just as banks and companies are de-leveraging), so they are finding ways to do that paying by debit vs. credit (as a recent VISA study had found). “Declasse consumption” essentially is the new strategy meaning a more thoughtful approach to what is purchased, focusing on high quality or high value goods as opposed to quantity / popularity of goods/services.

What does this mean for the average brand or business?  Focus on marketing yourselves to provide value to your customers.  Frito Lay is used as an example by John Gerzema in that they found that most of their customers had more money at the beginning of the month as opposed to the end of the month (paycheck cycles), so they staggared their products offering larger bags of chips at the beginning of the month on store endcaps to match their customers’ budgets.  Interesting way of thinking about product placement strategy.

Posted via email from Overlinked

Written by LP in: Business |

Powered by WordPress | Theme: Aeros 2.0 by TheBuckmaker.com