01:13 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
An important component of the work we do at Rassak is recognizing and working around the fact that the audiences our customers aim to connect with are frazzled beyond belief. That's life... we're all busy and not necessarily paying attention as well as we should/could---certainly we're not paying as much attention to those marketing to us as those who are marketing to us would like. Usually my conversations about this subject have to do with getting and keeping customers' attention via stand-out creative work and ongoing, respectful relationships.
Well... I just stumbled upon a nice example of the latter. ExpensAble, Inc. makes a handy product for tracking expenses while on the road. I knew I'd tried the product once before, but had totally forgotten that I'd actually bought it a year ago (I burn through laptops and don't always remember which software I had). Anyway... today I decided I need ExpensAble and requested a free trial off their site to get started. I got a warning on the page in red letters that said I'd already downloaded the software... as I started to read I was thinking "grrrrrrrrr, they're not going to let me try this again, how annoying, time to dig for the credit card, lord knows where it is"
Instead the warning went on to say that it appears I bought the software and they're about to email me a link to the download and my confirmation code (see screengrab below).
Nice. Very nice, in fact. That warning message probably didn't cost too much to code into the website and they bought at least my loyalty for a long time. I'll remember ExpensAble over their competitors and talk about them. That's marketing.
This has been another excerpt from Get Closer, a blog from Rassak Experience
12:29 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Virtual reality meet actual reality ....
My 10-year old (that's him messing with me in the photo) loves
soccer (playing, watching, and reading about the game). He also loves
soccer video games, including playing manager, which he can do with
Electronic Art's FIFA '08.
The other Sunday I heard excited shouts: "I signed Schweinsteiger, I
signed Schweinsteiger." He'd negotiated to bring a virtual version of
Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger on board his virtual
team. He was soon playing Schweinsteiger and the rest of his team
against the computer's virtual team.
Now, for £35, my son can make (or at least contribute to) personnel
decisions on a real team, Ebbsfleet United. Through an arrangement with
online community myfootballclub.co.uk,
real people can pick real team members from the comfort of their home
computers. It's conceptually similar to picking a virtual video game
team---except the players and the outcome happen with actual humans on
an actual pitch. Details can be found in this Max Colchester story in
the Wall Street Journal story (registration might be required).
Both experiences (FIFA and Ebbsfleet) offer, or will offer, new ways
of connecting with consumers in the digital era. Much has already been
written about so-called "in-game" advertising (as in the FIFA
example). I'm fascinated by the new community-media opportunities
afforded by the Ebbsfleet development.
Professional sports have for a long time been a major media
business---in the traditional one-to-many broadcast/endorsement media
model. Could Ebbsfleet (and a few other similar examples mentioned in
the WSJ story) be an early example of professional sports becoming a
many-to-many community media opportunity similar to what's developing
with Facebook, Digg and other websites?
