Archive for July, 2008
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
I take the train to Dhoby Ghaut station most days to work, and there’s this huge (one level high) Magnum ad with Eva Longoria, as well as this large Magnum prop that’s easily two to three times my height.
One day I walked past and in my usual cynical manner with all things traditional, thought to myself “Does this actually work? Is someone going to see this and buy a Magnum from the 7-11 upstairs?”
Then a few days ago my boss purchased a Magnum and I asked “Did you buy that because of the ad at Dhoby Ghaut?” He said no, but then we proceeded to have a conversation after that about the ad and the huge Magnum and how my boss always likes to grab a Magnum.
So did the ad work? It didn’t lead directly to sales but I did remember the ad enough to recall it talk to someone about it, which is more than I can say for most ads. And I remembered it was Magnum and not a Cornetto or something else, compared to the ads for TVs that I can never tell apart. Thinking about why that is, I’ve got a couple of reasons:
1) I pass by the ad almost everyday. Maybe there’s something to be said for repetition after all?
2) The giant Magnum is huge and impossible to miss. On the verge of being remarkable?
If you’ve seen the ad or the huge Magnum, did it make any impact on you?
Posted in Marketing | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
I’ll be overseas in Malaysia for the next two weeks (roughly) and probably will not be able to blog much. Do pardon my temporary hiatus! I’ll try to blog as much as I can but it probably won’t be as frequent as I’d like. Bear with me!
Posted in Announcements | 5 Comments »
Monday, July 21st, 2008
A couple of weeks ago I was at Ad:Tech and besides meeting some companies who treated us like idiots and some that didn’t, there was a pretty decent talk by three creative directors with their own set of “Five golden rules” in advertising.
The first and the last creative directors gave typical rules like stay true to the brand etc. Very advertising in the ’90s or web1.0. Now one of them gave five points that were much, much more relevant to this day and age:
- Understand your consumer
- Own an issue, stand for something
- Spark & manage a conversation
- Involve your audience
- Aim for impact
Alright understand your consumer and aim for impact are normal, but while the other two were talking about transmitting one-way messages, at least he mentioned “conversation” and involving the audience.
If you’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to an agency to do your advertising, wouldn’t you rather it be an interactive, engaging effort instead of one of 2 million “impressions” that registered in their peripheral vision for all of two seconds? Because if you’re still engaged in the transmit model (i.e one way monologue) as opposed to conversation and two way dialogue, it seems like a waste of time. Especially if your demo is Gen Y.
Posted in Gen Y, Marketing, mainstream media | 4 Comments »
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
Yesterday was the Ping.sg birthday party and awards. You might remember me mentioning I was nominated for “Most insightful blog”, “Most insightful post” for “Are bloggers really influencers?” and “Best review post” for my review of Plurk.
The great news is I managed to snag both “Most insightful post” and “Most insightful blog”, so thanks to everyone who voted for me, and the people who nominated me in the first place.
It’s obviously nice to walk away with something and I’m glad the blogosphere in Singapore is beginning to read and recognise that blogs aren’t just Meepok Blogs about what I had for lunch. One thing I do wanna say is let’s be clear that the awards were only open to people in the Ping.sg community. By default that leaves out other great insight blogs like Michael’s and Priscilla’s. Let’s also not forget other content blogs like Vanessa’s, Kevin’s and Walter’s who post great stuff, but maybe don’t always have the time to engage with the people on ping.sg. After all, voting always boils down to a popularity contest.
Still, I hope this means more people are going to recognise the impact of social media and start bringing it into their lives, work and play, and hopefully we will see a much needed change locally in the near future.
(ps: The pictures and “fun” stuff will be up on my personal blog later. Stay tuned!)
Posted in Announcements, Blogs, Plurk, Singapore, community, social media | 11 Comments »
Friday, July 18th, 2008
Last week I was looking through my feeds on Google Reader (an act that is becoming less and less frequent with work piling up), and saw one of del.icio.us’s “hotlist” saying “200 Nipples“. How could I resist clicking?
Turns out it is a t-shirt selling website that runs batches of t-shirts in exactly 100. Hence they aim to cover 200 nipples every month if they sell 100 t-shirts. The interesting thing about them is that each t-shirt is uniquely numbered, and corresponds to the amount you pay. So you’d pay $70 for t-shirt #70, and $1 for t-shirt #1. Pretty interesting concept and a novel business idea. Sounds to me like they would’ve had to have done some pretty intensive forecasting and cost modeling to come up with this, so credit given there.
What I really like about the company is their blog and product is geared towards conversation or discussion pieces, as you can read about in their writeup for their t-shirt for the month of July and their not-too-serious FAQ page and of course the story behind their company name, gives them a sense of “character” that most brands don’t possess.
Will they be a big player in the world of t-shirt businesses, only time will tell. But for now, I’m subscribed to their updates so I know when their latest design is released so I can snag me a t-shirt (hopefully when I’m up in the US so I can save on shipping).
Posted in Fun, social media | 3 Comments »
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Yesterday I talked about two things not to do if you’re selling a homogeneous product in the context of comic book stores. Today I’m going to wrap it up with two more.
#3 - Don’t fail to manage expectations properly.
When I moved over to G&B Comics, they gave away Previews (a comic book catalogue) free every month, to the people who shifted over from Colin’s. No mention of time frame, no mention it was a temporary thing. That was one thing that won me over in the beginning. Then, come last week, after 3-4 months, I was suddenly told that they weren’t continuing it anymore because it was “for awhile only”. Really? When was this mentioned? If they had told me it’s just for 4 months, at least I could manage that expectation and be ready to pay for it in the 5th month, rather than get a rude shock when I’m physically standing at the counter expecting a free copy.
#4 - Don’t make it seem like all you’re in for is the money.
I understand that if you’re not making money, you’re not in business. But it doesn’t mean your customers have to perceive that all you care about is making money. For example, I’m heading off to Canada from September, so unlike the store, I thought it’d be good to manage expectations and tell them not to get my comics (and save them some money) for the next quarter. Here’s my email to them in it’s entirety:
Dropping you a mail to let you know I won’t be in Singapore from September till December of this year. Just to drop you some early notice so you can manage the future orders.
Speaking of managing expectations, must say I’m pretty disappointed that the free Previews for those who shifted over from Atomix was suddenly dropped. Came as a bit of a surprise that it was a “temporary” arrangement cos that’s not what it sounded like at the beginning.
And here’s their response:
Hi Daryl,
your membership number is 1586 correct? as we’ve a couple of membership number named under Daryl Tay. We need to put on a notice so that your comic subscriptions will continue during this period that you’re not in singapore.
Thank you.
All that email read to me was “Can we clarify your number (instead of your name), so that we can cancel your orders and save us some cash”. No further communication about the poor expectation management, Nothing. Did I feel like they cared about anything other than money? No, not really.
For the record, Colin, the owner of the previous comic shop, also had a few customers going by “Daryl Tay”, but he never got it mixed up. Why? Effort and giving names to customers instead of numbers.
If you’re dealing with products or services that are easily available elsewhere, do take note of these points. They’ll help to keep your customers happy and perhaps even loyal.
Posted in Poor Practices, Singapore | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
You might have read the “About me” section that I put up on the blog maybe a month ago and picked up that I collect comic books/graphic novels. The thing about comic books (and to some extent normal books), is that they’re homogeneous. I could get them from any comic store (or book store) in Singapore (or the world, for that matter), and it would be the exact same product.
So what do you have going for you? Either a very competitive price, excellent service and customer relations, or both. (Singapore is pretty small and all the stores are centrally located, so I’ll leave location out of the equation).
I had to move to G&B Comics when the previous shop I went to closed down. Their prices are not terrible, but I’m paying more than I did at the old shop, and I can get some stuff at Kinokuniya at a better price. What really irks me is the customer service. So much so that I’ve had time to sit down and think of four things not to do if you’re in their position, of which I will share two today.
#1 - Don’t give your customers a number
The thing about this store (as opposed to previous stores) is that they don’t know who the hell you are. We go by numbers. So every week when I go to the store, I report my number like a prison inmate before I get my stash of comics. It’s not a great feeling.
#2 - Don’t employ the wrong people
In the previous store, Colin did everything himself, which means he knows a little bit about the comics industry. If you needed to order something, he’d take note immediately. The people hired at this store, aren’t like that and they’re literally like the checkout people at a supermarket. They’ll take your cash, but ask them about anything actually related to comic books, and you’re out of luck. It also doesn’t speak very well of the store if you’ve told the staff three or four times to help you keep a book, and they keep leaving it out.
After awhile actually becomes easier for me to just forget about asking them “Sorry I’m missing a copy of Manhunter” and just pick it up elsewhere instead. If they can’t be bothered about taking note of my buying preferences, then some other place can take the money.
#3 and #4 coming tomorrow. By the way don’t take this post like I hate the store. I’ve just had countless negative experiences in a few months that have been bugging me, despite me giving suggestions on how to improve.
Posted in Poor Practices, Singapore | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
In a month, Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 3 will be happening. The tentative date is Saturday, 16th August at the Asian Civilisations Museum. I finally got to meet up with Walter at Ogilvy’s Verge event, and pitched him with the idea a week later, and it’s worked out pretty well. We’ve got verbal confirmation from ACM about the venue but the date is still tentative.
What’s going to be different this time? Well first of all, we’re going to dedicate maybe 45mins to an hour to focus on discussing about social media. The topic is up in the air right now, so feel free to throw something in. Hopefully it won’t be something covered 73529573 times before (like should we pay bloggers to review products), but something different. Just to manage expectations, don’t expect the names or turnout like you see at other “conferences” because at the end of the day we’re a four man team with no budget!
Speaking of a four man team, another key difference is that Derrick will be taking point on this one, primarily because myself and Sheylara are going to be pretty swamped with work. We’re also welcoming Claudia into the mix, who’ll help with working out what exactly that social media topic should be. Who better than the community manager of Yebber who deals with social media every day to take up this job right? Shermeen, our masterful logo designer is unofficially on board helping us with what ever design stuff/torture we can throw her way as well.
While we’re on design, Sheylara and I have been discussing about getting a full-fledged domain for SMB:Singapore, so stay tuned for that.
And finally, everyone who comes gets free access and a guided tour of the Museum, and we’re in the process of persuading them to relax their photography rules for just one day so that as always, our bloggers can go crazy with their photo-taking.
More updates as they come in! We really want your feedback on how SMB should evolve. It’s not our “baby”, it’s everyone’s. So please comment below!
ps: In case you don’t know what SMB is about, read up on the first and second ones here!
Posted in Fun, Singapore, Uncategorized, collaboration, community, social media, social media breakfast | 17 Comments »
Monday, July 14th, 2008
This is part four (of four) of an analysis of a blogger survey conducted by Text 100. You can find out more from the previous parts:
Fig 1: 67% of bloggers spend less than 4hrs a week on blogging
Okay personally I’m not sure what this particular piece of data is supposed to show, but I think it says this: what other medium do you know that engages people for four hours a week? Television? Print? Radio? I don’t think so. Also note that this figure is purely spent on blogging. In other words there are many other hours spent chatting, on Lively, reading blogs, on YouTube, on Facebook. Are you still spending 90% of your adspend on mainstream media when we’re spending 10% of our time on mainstream media? (if even that).
Finally, I wanted to post some quotes from the survey in the form of advice from bloggers to companies. Maybe a traditional company will read this and find the quotes bordering on arrogant, but the truth is, these are your new consumers. They want personalisation, proper treatment, good service, and their loyalty only lasts as long as the next better deal comes along. So what’re you doing to continually be that better deal?
Fig 2: Blogger advice to companies
I think it’s easy for many of us in the “fishbowl” to look at this and say “so what’s new?”. But we have to keep in mind that companies by and large do not know this, or are skeptical. Solid, empirical research by a firm like Text 100 definitely helps bring some credibility to the discussion (especially in Asia), and I personally applaud the time, effort and I’m sure money put in to make this happen.
Posted in Research | 2 Comments »
Sunday, July 13th, 2008
Bloggers seem to know what the social media release is about. Or at least 60% of them do (Fig 1), and 72% of those who do, find it an effective communications tool.
Fig 1 - The social media release
The social media release results I take with a little pinch of salt purely because of the small sample size. It’s easy to look at it and say “Wow Singapore understands the social media release!” but remember we’re talking only 14 bloggers in Singapore.
Let’s add on a second bit of information, that 88% of bloggers aware of the social media release would use the related material in blog posts (Fig 2).
Fig 2 - Using social media release material in blog posts
This makes the picture a little bit clearer. Bloggers don’t have a lot of time to write lots of original stuff about you. Providing them with the right quotes, videos, pictures, etc can make their life easier. Think of it as how you submit a ready-to-print press release to a journalist, compared to the bare minimum and expecting the journalist to write the rest himself. Not gonna work right?
Here’s where it’s easy to put two and two together. Bloggers are receptive to using your material, and bloggers like using video.
Need I connect the dots for you to say what you should include in your social media release? One thing though, if you’re not confident of your video standing up to scrutiny, you should just skip on it, because the focus can very quickly turn to “look what a joke this video is” instead of focusing on your message.
Fig 3 - Sources of information about companies
Finally Fig 3 tells us that more than one in two bloggers talk about companies. Also, the accompanying caption in this slide points out that social bookmarking sites are the lowest ranked for bloggers to find out more information about a company. I’d like to point out that “other bloggers” is ranked first. So bloggers turn to other bloggers for information about your company, and generally speaking, one in two bloggers talk about companies (maybe yours). Does that scare you?
Before I end, I’d just like to drop off a couple of quotes that I saw in the survey about what bloggers feel the contact person should be saying/doing.
“Keep it short and to the point - lay off the extreme glorification of companies”
“Information in advance is crucial so the blogger has time to consider, research and develop the content into meaningful posts”
“Few corporates and almost no PR companies have websites that provide regularly updated, easily searchable press release archives”
How’s that for some Sunday afternoon reading? Tomorrow I’ll close up this topic with a few more quotes and a ball park figure for how much time bloggers spend blogging.
This is part three of an analysis of a blogger survey conducted by Text 100. Here are links to part one and part two, as well as the social media release template.
Posted in Research | 4 Comments »
