Write The Future

Here’s the new Nike World Cup Ad in full - Write The Future.

Another brilliant campaign by W+K

Posted via email from The Digital Marketer

Facebook: Facts You Probably Didn't Know

Some pretty cool Facebook Facts that you probably didn’t know about all packed into a nice little infographic. Courtesy of @mashable.

Posted via email from The Digital Marketer

Standchart SG's new mobile banking app is a breeze to use

Standard Chartered Bank Singapore has just launched a new mobile banking iPhone App called Breeze. A brief tour of the functionalities shows a pretty good user interface and great functionalities.

It even brags about featuring the world’s first iPhone e-Cheque which is basically you issuing a cheque to someone via your phone. At the back-end, someone at Stanchart will take that instruction and issue/mail a physical cheque to that person.

Check out the Breeze microsite and download the iPhone app at:

http://breeze.standardchartered.com

http://breeze.standardchartered.com

Posted via email from The Digital Marketer

Build your own social graph

Ionz is a cool little site and app that lets you build your own social information graph based on your answers to some basic questions. You can then download it as a desktop wallpaper.

Here’s mine:

Get yours at:

http://www.ionz.com.br/index.html (Click on the UK flag on the top right to toggle the language)

Posted via email from The Digital Marketer

Social Strategy - Getting your company ready

This is a great presentation done by the guys at the Altimeter Group about what's required for companies to incorporate social media as part of their overall business strategy.

It details a step by step methodology and provides an array of helpful insights and tools. Overall, its a great road-map for client side marketers and stakeholders to refer to when laying the foundation for building their brand and business with social media

Social strategy getting_company_ready_apr14_final

View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang.

HTC Singapore Facebook Page #EPICFAIL

HTC Singapore’s Facebook Fan page has been drawing some major flak lately. Business tend to forget the social media is not just a means of marketing their wares but also a personal and direct channel to engage their customers.

HTC has been neglecting questions from fans about issues and problems with their phone, creating an impression that the brand was ignoring it’s fan base while still posting updates on its latest launches and promotions. Thankfully, they didn’t make the same mistakes that Nestle did during the whole Greenpeace saga with Kit Kat by deleting negative comments and feedback.

The funniest thing happened on Monday when they posted a message saying that they would no longer be supporting the page (i.e. answering questions, customer service etc) but still asking fans to look out for updates and promotions. And then they went to disable the update bar,  disallowing fans to post things on the fan page wall.

As you can see from the image below, this wasn’t exactly a smart move. It might appear that HTC outsourced the management of this page to some social marketing agency to handle and perhaps their contract was up or they just didn’t have the resources to handle the large influx of comments and questions.

In any case, the lesson here is that any company looking to go into social media must be prepared to see it through. Doing it for the sake of just that will lead to more bad than good.

The thing with social media as compared to other digital campaigns is that it requires a huge amount of resource to manage and maintain and your customers expect to be able to communicate directly with your brand and get answers. You can’t just decide that you want to have a fan page so that you can push out marketing messages and promotions just like an eDM. It doesn’t work that way because the analogy is that now, the customer has a way to reply to you on a very public forum. And being able to handle these engagements in the appropriate manner is what helps drive brand advocacy and triggers the positive outcomes that would ultimately help you acheive your actual business objectives.

Posted via email from The Digital Marketer

SPG's Passport to Free Weekends Contest

Starwood has always been active on social media, with Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) being the first hotel loyalty program to establish a suite of Twitter, Facebook and iPhone applications online

Obviously, SPG sees social media as a key platform for further engaging an influential and rapidly growing segment of its members who are highly active social media participants. Online bookings are an increasingly important channel to the hospitality industry and with the number of players in the market, brand advocacy and customer service becomes an important differentiator. With these social media platforms, SPG hopes to be able to engage their customers and drive customer loyalty and increased bookings. At the same time, also use the channel to deliver the SPG experience to new customers.

 

SPG will be launching a rather interesting social media campaign on May 11.

For a period of 10 days (starting May 11), SPG will share clues (text and pictures) about the location of a specific Starwood hotel or resort on Twitter and  their Facebook page. The first 10 participants to arrive at the hotel and provide the front desk at the correct hotel with the phrase “I’m here for my Free Weekends Passport photo” will win 2 free weekend night that can be redeemed at any Starwood hotel.

They will need to take a photo with the front desk (which will probably be shared on Facebook & Twitter) when claiming the prize.

This is a perfect way to reinforce their current Free Weekends promotion (spg.com/freeweekends) where customers get to earn a free weekend night for every 3 hotel stays they make.

Posted via email from The Digital Marketer

Social Media ROI: Socialnomics

Here’s a great video that showcases examples of social media campaigns that have delivered on ROI.

I believe that social media can help drive business results and show ROI, whether directly or sometimes, indirectly. The most important point is that you have to be clear from the onset about your objectives and not just plainly rush into it and see what comes along.

What are YOUR campaign objectives? Here are a list of possible campaign objectives:

• Build product and brand awareness
• Strengthen relationships with clients, prospects, and influencers
• Better understand your buyers
• Improve customer service
• Identify new product ideas
• Increase web site traffic
• Improve search engine rankings
• Drive traffic to your events
• Generate leads
• Generate sales

As with any other digital campaigns, there are an array of tools you can use to measure results. Social Media is not just a passing fad. Your customers are talking about you and your brand regardless of whether you like it or not. The question is no longer "Should we be on Facebook or Twitter?" but rather "How should we leverage on social media to drive sustainable business results?"

Posted via email from The Digital Marketer

Philips vs The Sun

Philips did this social media campaign a while back called Philips Vs Anything which I thought was really cool.

The idea was that people could challenge Philips to beat something else using their products via twitter.

The winner would get one of Philips’famous 21:9 Cinema Screens.

In this video example Philips Vs The Sun, the guys try to fool a Rooster to think that it’s morning using a Wake-Up Light – It’s hilarious.

Campaign website: http://philipsvs.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/philips_vs

This is a great way to leverage on the viral power of social networks and interact with the social community by giving them something really interesting, fun and innovative to be part of and shout about.

You would think something this cool would generate a lot of buzz – It did in the marketing community. However, it only generate a small number of tweets per day and there weren’t many mentions of the brand on Twitter; showing that it wasn’t as well received by mainstream consumers.  A key lesson here in social media - Just because some people like content doesn’t guarantee that it will go viral.

Posted via email from intersphere's posterous

We've moved

I've moved my blog over to Posterous, simply because it's much easier to maintain and post.

You can find me at intersphere.posterous.com/

Updates

Haven't been posting for a while....Maintaining a blog just takes too much time and commitment. I will be posting from time to time. But for real time updates, you can flow me on Twitter @intersphere

Adult Science

My colleague Vicky shared this with me - A monthly Japanese Magazine (that roughly translates to "Adult Science") that comes with a DIY kit. Every issue of the magazine comes with a different kit where you can build something interesting. The current issue features a DIY 35mm twin lens film camera. Past issues have featured DIY gramophones , mechanical robots and vehicles with engines . Each issue costs about HKD300 (Around SGD60).

Shanghai was a blast

Been in Shanghai for the past week - The land without Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and blogs. The average temperature was around 5 to 10 degrees so I pretty much spent most of my time wrapped up in 3 layers of clothes. On the flight there, I picked up IHT on the plane and read about Google's mobile push into Japan, a country where Yahoo still holds tops. The article talked about aggressive advertising on Google's mobile platform and I suddenly realize, I've never actually seen a Google print ad before. So it came as a pleasant surprise to see one on the Shanghai metro for Google Mobile.

Bring out the scarfs

It's getting cold in HK - Time to break out the jacket and scarfs. Been trying to figure out a cool way to drape/tie the scarf over my neck. Saw this one mannequin at a shop and thought this was pretty cool. Snuck a picture so that I could slowly figure out how to tie it this way.

Google Wave Rocks

I just got on to the Beta version of Google Wave. It is going to be big!

Where do people get these ideas?

http://ijustmadelove.com is a website that allows you to see on a Google Map where people in the world have just had sex. You can choose to add in your own marker. Man, where do people get ideas like these?

H&M never again

I was never a big H&M fan until recently, when I found a nice jacket in Shanghai (of all places). Since then, I've found myself walking into the HK outlets again and again, coming out with a couple of nice sweaters and another cool jacket in anticipation for the much cooler weather this time of the year.

However, having gone back to Shanghai and visiting the famed fabric market at Lujiabang Lu, I've decided that I may never need to shop at H&M or Zara or any other clothes retailer again. I might go to the shops to look for ideas but almost anything, and I mean ANYTHING can be made at the fabric market for a fraction of any retail cost. My first trip there was to make a nice winter jacket (the ones you see in all the nice magazines (think GQ and not FHM) but never ever thought about while living in hot and humid Singapore) - However, I was so amazed by the variety and quality that I ended up with that jacket plus another business jacket and two dress shirts.

The 2-ply dress shirts cost me RMB70 (around SGD15) each - Slim fit with french cuffs (the way I like it) and are exactly the same quality shirts that I make in SG for SGD100 to SGD120.

Yes, it's that cheap. And I've done my homework in HK (SGD60 per shirt) and even Shenzhen (SGD30 per shirt). Here's a picture of the winter outer-jacket I made for RMB480 (Just below SGD100). You can bet I'll be back there soon on my next trip up.

FT.com - Using Personas

In the interactive field, we always encourage the use of "user personas" in the design of websites - i.e. What are the types of users whom would use the site and then look at developing "personas" for these users in the form of characters. Then we develop the site architecture and navigation according to address the needs of these key characters. FT.com's Advertising Asia Microsite has a brilliant example of this. Though not exactly used in the same context, it clearly shows would-be advertisers how they can reach their intended audience through the various advertising mediums available through FT.

Uncrate

This is a really cool website - www.uncrate.com
Uncrate is a web magazine for guys who love stuff. The team digs up the best gadgets, clothes, cars, DVDs and more and new items are posted daily.

I Heart Onitsuka Tiger

I've always wanted to buy a pair of Onitsuka Tigers and finally did so today. Went to the Onitsuka botique at Fashion Walk (Causeway Bay) yesterday but they ran out of sizes for the models I wanted. Apparently, these shoes are really limited in Hong Kong. Managed to find this really cool pair in Mongkok today and got it at 10% off. The Hongkong sale is marvellous.

Also got myself a cool vintage Champion T-shirt from the sale at Sogo; my second one so far. These are the remodelled Japanese versions which feature vintage U.S designs. Check it out at www.championusa.jp