Okay, this isn’t exactly a brand but it won my vote for being innovative – this guy proposed to his girlfriend using Groupon.
How did it work? He ‘sold’ himself by publishing his deal on Groupon Malaysia, knowing that his girlfriend checks Groupon on a daily basis. The deal garnered almost 48,000 ‘buys’ which indicated the support he received for the proposal. The girl said “Yes”.
4 things Marketers can learn from this proposal:
#1: Know your target audience
How many marketers out there actually sit down to really understand their target audience? I ask this because it is tough. Many businesses out there want to expand too soon, without thoroughly understanding their existing audience and it goes beyond just demographics. What are their behavioral patterns online? What are their interest? The closer you get the better it gets, just like how the guy knew the girlfriend checks out Groupon every morning without fail.
#2: Don’t limit your marketing tools even before it starts
A common scenario
Client: I want a Facebook campaign.
Marketer: Sure! Let’s do one.
I must admit I fall into that once in a while too, simply because it is the easy way out. However the real question to ask is: Will _________ be THE effective tool? Could there be a better tool out there that your target audience is using? Many pick Facebook / Twitter simply because it has a huge user base. But let’s face it – how many will actually participate in your marketing campaign? Think of other tools that can make your campaign fun and memorable outside of the usual Facebook.
#3: Get people talking
Mark Hughes in his book Buzz Marketing says that there are 6 buttons to get people talking (buzz): the taboo, the unusual, the outrageous, the hilarious, the remark-able and the secrets. In the case of the Grouposal, it is the unusual – and it generated more than 6,000 shares on Facebook alone. How’s that for a proposal? Give your campaign an angle that people can talk about.
#4: Be on the look out for opportunities to promote
Sometimes you do not need to create your own successful marketing campaigns – you can hitch a ride on the hype. Traditionally, marketers rely on festive seasons such as Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween and etc to market themselves. What about weddings, birthdays, anniversaries or proposals such as the above? This hair salon saw the opportunity to promote themselves using this proposal that was stirring much buzz.
Hello there! How’s your weekend coming along? Some weekend browsing allowed me to stumble across this and if you’ve always been wondering which of the 3 phones mentioned lasts longer on the grill, this video is made for you:
What’s interesting to note that this video is not made for sheer entertainment purposes – it is to promote a product called the EZGrill disposable grill. If you haven’t noticed, this video is going viral with about 9k views on YouTube since it was uploaded 24 hours ago. People all around the world are tuning in just to see 3 of the latest gadgets out there getting grilled helplessly.. and watching a live demonstration on how the EZGrill works!
A costly idea? EZGrill will need to sell more than 200 units to recoup the cost spent on the phones for this ad. Will it be possible? At the rate it is going, very much so. Should EZGrill give the phones away rather than grilling them? Nah.. The grilling cooked up a huge opportunity for consumers to see their product in action the fun (for some) and dreadful (for some) way. The hype builds faster this way, too!
So, what does it take to go viral?
Looking at EZGrill’s ad, I managed to pick up2 simple points:
1. Pick something that’s current: EZGrill used the 3 most talked about gadgets – the Android G2, iPhone 4 and Windows Phone 7 as the main catch. They did not say “See how my EZGrill works and how awesome it is” but to use current topics to capture the attention of the consumers, then show them what the product is all about.
2. Do something unusual / drastic: They pulled something drastic as opposed to IKEA that went for the unusual route. EZGrill used 3 current items, did something drastic and that captured major attention and interest (and shock). Grilled phones? We don’t see that coming everyday.
There are definitely more ways to go about viral videos but usually the above two does it just right. I am personally interested to see how far this video will travel.
Did I miss out something from EZGrill’s video? I would love to hear them :)
If you’ve read my previous post about an innovation about the next generation of credit cards (Card 2.0), I mentioned two things:
1. Some banks in the US have been running tests and prototypes on Card 2.0
2. I personally think that this concept would not go too far as the next generation payment may go beyond cards (mobile, maybe?)
Well, Citibank is seen to be the first heading into the Card 2.0 world with two buttons – giving cardholders to have the option to pay either via credit or Citi Reward Points anywhere the card is accepted. Introducing to you the Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard and PremierPass Elite cards from Citibank! It is said that these cards will officially launch in May 2011.
Pretty interesting, huh? Instead of sticking to the concept of having 2 different cards represented in 1 Card 2.0, they made it simpler for their cardholders to make different modes of payment. Simple, yet smart.
Do you have a better idea for Card 2.0? I’d love to hear them :)
I don’t know about you but it would seem that almost everyone carries a smart phone nowadays, and with telecommunication companies here at Malaysia pushing the sales of iPhones, almost everyone is seen with one on the streets. Is the iPhone really THAT popular?
If you’ve noticed, Apple’s iPhone only owns 2% of the world mobile phone market share but yet they make tons out of it.. thanks to Apple supporters and fans! Now that’s the power of branding!
In case you’re wondering – yes, this site also reveals part of my happenings in life, injecting a little bit more flavour to the site as a whole; something lighter than the usual information dosage, especially for the weekend :)
“Did you know that Google originally ran under Stanford University’s website – google.stanford.edu?”
On the faithful day of 27th September, a dear friend of mine celebrated his 12th birthday – Google
I must confess that I didn’t really like Google when we first met. I was closer to Yahoo! back then. Yahoo! was cooler as he offered various online games, games that allowed me to meet people from other countries through ‘chat’ and the opportunity to beat them in checkers, chess and pool.. all the way back in 1997, when I was 10. I had a mail account with Yahoo! at that time and I thought it was the coolest thing on earth, although I also had accounts with Hotmail, ICQ, Excite, Lycos and the likes. Yahoo! remained my favourite.
“Did you know that the domain Google.com was officially registered on the 15th September 1997, and only launched on 27th September 1998?”
At that time, Googlelooked like this:
And Yahoo! like this:
I pretty much stuck with Yahoo! all the way till 2004, where my life was turned around with the introduction of Gmail. Really. At that point of time, Gmailoffered 1GB worth of mailbox size in which I needed and what made Googlecooler is that Gmailwas only available on special invitation. Wow! At that time, most mailboxes were only 100MB big small!
Because of that, I started hanging out with Googlemore and found that he is able to search more efficiently than my previous buddy! He gives me the results I require and does not take a long time to load up as he really is a simple dude, with his name on a white background.
Since then, Googlebecame my answer to everything and has yet to fail me ever since. He became a buddy throughout college, university and life. Today, I can still be found on Gmailand have also furthered my commitment, being attached to Gchat, Gcalendars, Gdocs, Gmaps, Gbuzz and his cousin, YouTube. He is so nice that he has even taught me the secret to be ranked #1 on him and managed to do it for a number of my sites (this site soon, too)!
Sure, he has his pitfalls once in awhile, but I’ve never regretted getting know Google. Happy 12th Birthday, friend!
How did you get to know Google? Do YOU have a Googlestory? It’ll be great to hear them,too ;)
In case you’re wondering – yes, this site also reveals part of my happenings in life, injecting a little bit more flavour to the site as a whole; something lighter than the usual information dosage, especially for the weekend :)
It has been about a month now since MOFEW 2010 and lots of back-end work have took place ever since – compiling of data, closing of accounts and various follow-up duties. The result? We finally managed to get the Official MOFEW 2010 Report up and it can be downloaded over here (5mb)! This 32-page report contains the many aspects of the project including statistics, pictures, feedbacks, media write-ups and also a special page highlighting some very interesting facts of MOFEW! I’m sure glad it’s all done especially when it took out an entire month! Have a look at the report!
Do take a look at what the Malaysia’s Online Fashion Entrepreneurs’ Weekendis all about on the official Facebook page and for pictures, too!
Despite the busy schedule, thankfully, I was still able sneak some time out for the premiere of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole in 3D last Monday at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. It was a very good movie with a decent storyline, couple of laugh-worthy scenes, awesome visual graphics and a pretty catchy theme song by Owl City! If you’re intending to watch it, 3D is the way to go for this one! Oh, the tickets were free, sponsored by Advertlets, an Asian blog advertising network located in Malaysia.
Looking ahead, I’m sure it’s gonna be yet another amazing week with great opportunities to be unfold! There are several projects on the way and they’ll will be leveraging on the power of social media for a greater measure of success. It’s gonna be really exciting to work with companies that sees social media as an important element to their business and is willing to take the step to make the change. Will be sharing more on it when it is confirmed! For now, it’s the weekend!
Speaking of social media, I can’t help but to share this video I stumbled upon on YouTube:
Many became very excited when they first experienced some delays and abnormality on Twitter.com (e.g. consistent fail whales, exceptionally long loads, messed up home page and etc) as they thought their chance of witnessing the #NewTwitter is on it’s way to them and… the excitement did not last for long –
Little did they know that what seemed like an upgrade to Twitter.com recently turned sour for many just within the past 5 – 10 minutes where Twitter is reported to have been hacked / bugged / exploited by @masta. Those ‘contracted’ this disease automatically re-tweets the below:
It appears to be a string of a dysfunctional Javascript but it would seem that the link is actually masked and diverts curious cats to external sites (update #2: mostly porn sites).
I call it… the Twithack!
“How does it happen?”
It all starts with a simple rollover over links on Twitter.com as it would seem that @masta is using Javascript to do it’s client-side magic exploit with AJAX. This also means that you may want to steer away from the web service and rely on 3rd party apps such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic or any other tools that is to your liking.
“Oh no, I think I caught the bug! What do I do now?”
No lethal damage has been reported thus far so the main reason behind this exploit still remains unknown. Self publicity, perhaps? @masta got the world talking about him so he definitely succeed in that one.
[Update #1: this just in @ 10:12pm – 21st Sept 2010]
“Who or what is this @masta?”
Masta is the name of a viral Twitter XSS worm spread by@masta but is also said that it is not created by him. It is a rollover security flaw by Twitter, exploited by @masta to create this mass dissatisfaction among Twitter users worldwide – it is even trending right now!
A more descriptive definition from Mashable: The flaw uses a JavaScript function called onMouseOver which creates an event when the mouse is passed over a chunk of text. We’ve seen the flaw being abused to launch simple pop-up windows, redirect users elsewhere (including porn sites), and we’ve also seen it used in combination with blocks of color, covering the true “intention” of the tweet.
“Great, I’m re-tweeting the tweet too! Is my account hacked?”
As much as people think so, it is once again reported that your accounts are not “hacked” by any means (update #3: confirmed by Twitter). However, do not click on the re-tweeted links just in case!
“It there something or anything that I can do?”
Looks like that popular thing to do now is to block @masta on Twitter and delete the tweet. Also, watch what you rollover on Twitter.com!
[Update #2: this just in @ 12:30am – 22nd Sept 2010]
The news of the Twithack / exploit seem to be crossing borders by the second with many venting their frustration towards Twitter and @masta. Some even came up with their own reasoning for the hack just for laughs as below:
RT @Followcat: Twitter got hacked by a #Mouseover bug. “Mouse Over” is last thing I hear mice say on their walkie-talkies before I eat them.
RT @Lord_Voldemort7: Twitter got hacked. The birds got tired of taking shit from the whale & went rogue. The fail whale will now be replaced with the dark mark.
RT @BestWorstAdvice: Want to tell your ex how you really feel about them? Send them angry tweets and tell them “Sorry, my Twitter got hacked.”
RT @gthree_ca: Twitter got hacked?! Funny… everything else seems normal. I guess it wasn’t a sign of the apocalypse after all.
RT @official_shaw: Twitter got hacked today. Millions of twitterers were forced to talk to each other the old fashioned way. Through Facebook.
There are also a whole lot of them that are disappointed to have missed out the whole ‘epidemic’! To the rest, it may have been a fun experience.
Interestingly enough, it is reported that even Sarah Brown, wife of former British Prime Minister was also the victim of this new twitter attack. Sarah Brown’s Twitter page has been messed with in an attempt to redirect visitors to a hardc0re p0rn site based in Japan. That’s obviously bad news for her over one million of followers. As the links being re-tweeted were mostly directed to Japanese sites, it is suspected that it originated from Japan.
“What are the recommended things to do if I’m affected?”
Trending now:
1. Use Twitter only through 3rd party tools
2. Block @masta on Twitter
3. Remove tweets from your profile that has the Javascript links / codes
4. Change the password of your Twitter account (just in case)(update #3: exploit does not compromise account details)
5. Spread the news to inform those that are unaware!
[Update #3: this just in @ 2:30am – 22nd Sept 2010]
Case closed! Twitter finally responded indicating that they have things under control, followed by a message from the Twitter status blog saying “We’ve identified and are patching a XSS attack; as always, please message @safety if you have info regarding such an exploit”. It is mentioned that the mouseover security vulnerability was discovered a month back and was fixed but the recent update set the bug free again (and apparently it has nothing to do with the #NewTwitter)!
Twitter also indicated that “we are not aware of any issues related to it that would cause harm to computers or their accounts. And, there is no need to change passwords because user account information was not compromised through this exploit”, Which also means that whatever happened earlier was a surface job that does not affect the user records within Twitter’s database. Still no mention about the source or the intention, though..
If you are still in the dark of what has been happening or was too afraid to do anything when the bug attacked, Sophos made a video to demonstrate the various errors that happened during that memorable duration:
[Update #4: this just in @ 11:00pm – 22nd Sept 2010]
A 17 year old boy from Australia claimed that he may be the cause of Twitter users being exposed to the epidemic yesterday. It was mentioned that he merely wanted to test if Javascript works on tweets which eventually led to the ‘announcement’ of it being possible.
However, the person who is likely THEperson who actually created the havoc is suspected to be Masato Kinugawa, a Japanese developer as he was the one that initially reported this security flaw to Twitter on the 14th August which was patched.. until the recent upgrade where he may have found that it is now exploitable again.
“So all in all I would think that the entire sequence revolves around 2 geniuses that is wanting to test their skills using Twitter as a platform when they found a exploitable point. Let’s just hope that they are not up to something else!“
“What’s next?”
We’ll be moving on in life, I’ll be off to visit Twitter.com and the birds will be tweeting their way through the new day on the web, yet again! :)
I don’t know how many of you are like me – often skeptical of the usefulness of many accessibility options out there with screen readers and what not that is supposed to help those with disabilities such as the blind. I was also very skeptical with the accessibility functions on the iPhone for the blind as I find it difficult to see how a blind user is able to navigate with a touch screen device.. and that was where I was totally wrong.
After stumbling upon this article on Gizmodo, I must say that I’m truly impressed with the iPhone for the very first time – not because of it’s sleek exterior, the AppStore or the brand, but of it’s amazing accessibility features.
“When I first heard that Apple would release a touchpad cell phone with VoiceOver, the screen reading software used by Macs, I scoffed. The blind have gotten so used to lofty promises of a dream platform, only to receive some slapped together set of software with a minimally functional screen reader running on overpriced hardware which can’t take a beating. I figured that Apple just wanted to get some good PR – after all, how could a blind person even use a touchpad? I laughed at the trendies, both sighted and blind, buying iPhones and enthusing about them.”
Austin Seraphin got his iPhone on the 9th June 2010 and his life was changed forever. A doubter of this overpriced gadget soon granted him access to a world like never before allowing him to read tweets, look up stock prices, surf the web and more!
When Austin’s mom was told by the salesman that VoiceOver does not read text messages, her heart sank but Austin simply said “Well, let’s see, try it.”. His mom pulled out her phone, and sent him a text message. Within seconds, the phone alerted him, and said her name. Followed by a simple finger swipe and it read her message: Hi Austin. She almost cried – and that was the beginning of a changed life for Austin.
If that isn’t enough, wait till you see what happened after he recently downloaded the Color ID app from the AppStore. It granted him sight to a world he has never been able to see before.
“The next day, I went outside. I looked at the sky. I heard colors such as “Horizon,” “Outer Space,” and many shades of blue and gray. I used color cues to find my pumpkin plants, by looking for the green among the brown and stone. I spent ten minutes looking at my pumpkin plants, with their leaves of green and lemon-ginger. I then roamed my yard, and saw a blue flower. I then found the brown shed, and returned to the gray house. My mind felt blown. I watched the sun set, listening to the colors change as the sky darkened.”
You know, all these are only possible when proper software development guidelines are followed and Apple’s stringent rules that caused inconvenience to developers really pays off to the blind! Austin’s experience gave me a whole new meaning in developing accessible websites and not leaving those options out for convenience sake. Imagine: your website or software being able to change and bring sight to one’s life – it is beyond hit counts, impressions and profit. It is priceless. Believe it or not, simple gestures such as properly naming the links and images and with proper usage of tags including page titles, meta tags, link titles, form fields, etc will go a long way in helping the blind read your content.
“I love my iPhone. It changed my universe as soon as it entered it.” – Austin Seraphin
Those words may be words of every Apple fan but for Austin’s case, it brought a whole new perspective to me. It’s amazing to see the how technology today has evolved into and packed into a mobile device. After all, what’s good of technology if it does not improve the quality of life especially for those who really needs it?
I’m glad that the iPhone is not just an overpriced gadget to shout about but a device that can bring change – or in this case, SIGHT into one’s life.
You’ve heard about Web 2.0. How about a Credit Card 2.0? That’s the evolution of credit cards – really cool features, secured, water and scratch proof. Imagine a card that can tie in multiple accounts into one card, password protected, hide certain digits of your card number with a push of a button (yes, a button), but yet retain it’s card-like plastic features and remains just as thin!
All in all, it is definitely what credit cards should be like right now!
According to the creators of Card 2.0 (Dynamics Inc.), several banks in the States are already undergoing stealth testing with prototype cards and may be launching soon, although an exact date is still unavailable at this moment.
My description of Card 2.0 does not do justice to this awesome innovation. Hear it from them directly in the video below, thanks to Mashable (note: it is pretty noisy so you may want to jack up your volume a little lot!
So, what do you think? I can so imagine myself carrying one of these right away!
“However, the video does not tell us where the battery will come from and it may be really costly for them to produce these in the mass. Plus, security may still be a problem since passwords aren’t exactly safe as well. Let’s see how far this innovation will be able to travel as Cards may not be THE next generation for payment! For all we know, Google may just come up with a Google Bank that allows you to use your Google Account sign-in at banks and transactions… scary much”
Despite the busy schedule, thankfully, I was still able sneak some time out for the premiere of 
The news of the Twithack / exploit seem to be crossing borders by the second with many venting their frustration towards Twitter and @masta. 