After being asked about the same topic consistently, I decided it was time to make a video which i could use to trigger thought processes in order to help change the way people think about new marketing.
I might well make more of these short videos in the future as I see them as another opportunity or avenue to get the social media message in front of people.
Any questions at all, feel free to contact me.
Pizza Hut in the UK introduce a fascinating social media strategy.
Pizza Hut have decided that they will give you a free pizza for every goal that any team scores against France in the World Cup. Now obviously this has to be capped at some point and the terms and conditions state that they are giving away up to 350 pizza’s per goal and the prize must be redeemed the day of the goal, but this is a fascinating strategy.
At this stage, it seems this is targeted predominantly towards Facebook users, which is possibly the perfect platform. The campaign targets an extremely broad target market (ie: Pizza eaters) and has an opportunity to spread with an intense viral nature (However at this stage the Facebook group has under 12,000 group members).
Its likely that the only market this campaign doesn’t appeal to is the French!
I find it very encouraging to see an ‘older’ company introducing new and unique strategies.
WWDC Round-up! iPhone 4 (iOS4) and more!
Steve Jobs opened WWDC 2010 with his usual hour and a half keynote address to media and developers and today’s exciting session didn’t disappoint.
Steve first touched on the iPad, announcing that 5 of the 6 biggest book publishers in the USA will be distributing books for the iBook store for iPad. In addition to this, he announced that PDF support has been added for both iPad and iPhone, which is a big win for iPad users.
Next Jobs discussed the relevance of the app store introducing a Netflix rep, who announced that their free app is coming to the iPhone. Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga then took to the stage and announced that Farmville is coming to the iPhone and iPad. Clearly not based on the flash platform, this could clearly disrupt Facebook’s lead over social gaming. Say goodbye to productivity.
Now onto the iPhone 4 (iOS4).
Design:
The design overall is much the same as what we saw leaked on Gizmodo a month or two ago although what we didn’t know is that the back panel is actually also glass.
Features:
Many of the features which have been announced are not a big surprise, however there are a few nice additions. These include:
Front facing camera for the purpose of video calling, this is entitled ‘Facetime’. This is no big surprise, and reviewers at WWDC have acknowledged that this feature works very well.
Built in receivers around the phone distribute the signal. One can only assume that this feature will provide better mobile reception.
Retina display. This is a new Apple technology which is quoted as having 4 times as many pixels for a much higher resolution screen (960x640 pixels). Steve was quoted as saying that this is significantly better then OLED and it will be the future.
Powered by the A4 processor. This isn’t a great surprise, the A4 processor is Apple’s own technology and will continue to make an impact in Apple’s mobile devices.
Folders to make navigating your home screens simpler. We’ve known this is coming as part of the OS release, and it couldn’t be more timely. The changes look nice and usable, a simple but very worthwhile addition.
5 megapixel camera. A camera upgrade was inevitable in this revision of the iPhone. We’ve seen HTC and other devices released with 7+ megapixel cameras, so whilst 5 still isn’t impressive, if there is a high quality lense, there shouldn’t be much to complain about.
LED camera flash. Again, LED flashes are now included on the majority of smart phones, so it was just a matter of time before this was announced.
Three-axis gyroscope. We don’t know an significant amount about this as yet, but Steve promoted this feature as an additional sensor to make using the iPhone more accurate. He demo’d this feature with a Jenga style game, which seemed to work very well and smoothly.
HD video recording (720pm @ 30 frames/second). An increase in the quality of the video recording capability is very nice. The 3GS managed video recording - Barely. Whilst we can’t assume this will be ‘true HD’, innovation is always good.
iMovie for iPhone. Steve announced a dedicated version of iMovie which retails at $4.99 right now in the app store. Attendees stated that this is a very well developed app and that it wouldn’t be unrealistic to see social video editing taking place in the very near future.
Multitasking has finally been implemented, however, just how far has it gone? It was demo’d with Pandora running in the background, can we be sure that this will work with any app or just ‘multitasking approved’ apps? Time will tell.
Unified inbox and threaded emails. This feature was a bit of a surprise and seemed to be unexpected, however a welcome addition. Much like Gmail or Microsoft Outlook 2010, the trend seems to be threaded emails.
Finally, Steve outlined some new statistics relating to the iAds platform, however this is seemingly dedicated to pursuading developers to ‘stick with Steve’.
Price:
iPhone 3GS - $99*
iPhone 4 - $199*
*These prices are based on being locked to an AT&T contract.
Release date:
June 24th for the USA, Japan, UK, Germany and France. However Steve committed to a July release in Australia.
The iPhone 4 is aimed to reach 88 countries by September 2010.
More info on Apple’s newly updated iPhone website: www.apple.com/iphone
Earth Justice Implementing Location Based Donations
This is quite amazing. We are starting to gradually see companies with real incentives for checking in using location based services (eg: Foursquare or Goalla). These methods of promotion encourage some pretty intense brand loyalty.
There has never been a more interesting time to be a consumer.
Facebook… The ongoing saga…
The bashing of Facebook continues amidst a series of privacy changes. Today, being the official ‘Quit Facebook Day’ reached only 25,000 like minded people, representing just 0.006% of their estimated 400 million users. Whilst this number isn’t necessarily representative of the actual number of people who will leave the site today, it is unrealistic to believe that this will create even a bump in Zuckerberg’s pocket.
Whilst we’ve seen major tech players make a stand and move away from the site, it seems this hasn’t truly hit the mainstream public. The average user still has an open profile and has even less of an idea as to why they should deactivate their account. At the end of the day, if a user doesn’t care enough about maintaining their privacy and chooses to post their information online, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this information is accessible to all and furthermore, potentially sold to advertisers. Whilst arguably unethical, perhaps it is a price to pay for the use of this free service and an inability to censor yourself online.
My personal view is that Facebook should follow an opt-out approach. All users should be listed as private. If a particular user wishes to unlock their account to the public, they should have the ability to opt-out.
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