Adverts from Poland

I just thought I would share with you a few adverts I saw whilst on holiday in Poland (more about this on my travel blog shortly!)

Poland is a country of contradiction – on the one hand, thousands of pounds are being spent on advertising, but on the other hand, the average Pole earns around £200 per month! But what amazed me even more, is the size the adverts over there – they are absolutely GIGANTIC and very interesting graphically speaking.

• A Pespi can on Lodz’s main commercial artery, Piotrkowska – I also also saw this Pespi can in Krakow and Warsaw

• An inflatable dog advertising Velvet toilet paper on Piotrkowska in Lodz (photo taken from a rickshaw)

• A gigantic advertising screen in Manufaktura (shopping centre) in Lodz

• A Converse ad in Warsaw 

• An Era (mobile phone supplier)/Sony Ericsson ad on Market Square in Krakow

And finally, a Play (mobile phone supplier) ad in Warsaw

I was really surpised to see that both Eva and Play (mobile phone suppliers) advertise their products in a sexual way - do you think this type of advert would be acceptable  in your respective countries?

My new travel blog - Destination World

 

I am terribly excited to announce that my new travel blog, Destination World, is now online! I love travelling and I felt it would be a good idea to share my experiences and travel tips with the rest of the world. I am planning on blogging about my travels, but also about stuff happening in London.

I am off to Poland tomorrow and I’ll be on this side of the blogosphere for a week or so.

Meet Jonas from Trig

 

What do these guys have in common? Tom is American, Jonas is Swedish. Tom set up Myspace, Jonas set up Trig. Now you’re probably thinking that Trig is just another online community. Well it isn’t! Trig is much better than Myspace, Facebook, or Bebo.  

So what’s Trig all about?

Jonas started all of this: ‘When I was working in the recording industry I started to see the backside of the business and figured there should be some kind of platform for creative people who, like me, never felt comfortable being part of the established system.That’s how the idea of Trig was born. Sure, I have a lot of friends who are helping me now, but we all believe in putting an end to the cynicism of mass culture. My vision for Trig is simple: You should be in charge. I want you to be able to decide for yourself whether you want a company behind you or just do all the promotion and selling yourself, or maybe just post private pictures of you and your friends. I want you to have maximum freedom and full independence. I believe both you and I have dreams. I am realising mine, I’m sure you’ll be doing the same.’ 

I found out about Trig via my Myspace friends so I sent a bulletin to find out why they felt Trig was so much better – the answers were simple: Trig is sleek, there are no glittery comments, no spam, no phishing and the site doesn’t crash!

But more importantly, there is a person behing the machine. I told Jonas a couple of weeks ago that I was planning on blogging about Trig so I sent him an email with a few questions and 5 minutes later, I had a reply:

When was Trig set-up?

Trig was set up about 2.5 years ago but introduced to the web in august 2006 an then introduced to the public in the end of January

How do you differentiate yourself from Myspace?

First I think we have a filter system in form of the trigs, that helps getting the quality content to the surface and then I see Trig as a more image driven brand than Myspace.

How do people find out about Trig? Word of mouth or do you advertise in any way?

We haven’t started any promotion yet, so far it’s only been word of mouth 

How many members are there on Trig?   

22,000 and rising (I sent a message a couple of weeks ago, but when I checked today, Jonas almost had 24,000 friends) 

It’ll be interesting to see how Jonas is doing in 6 months time. To be continued…  

Mobile Phones - Tool or Lifestyle?

Back in March, I blogged about the relationship consumers have with their mobile phones in the UK, and Chris Brown kindly covered the American market on her blog. 

It was our understanding that while consumers in the UK have an emotional ‘relationship’ with their mobile phones (rather than the actual provider), cell phones are seen as a functional tool in the US, and American consumers pay more attention to the provider itself.  

But is it really the case? Do British consumers really have a ‘relationship’ with their phones? The only way to find out was to conduct a little market research of my own. 

My research objective was to understand how consumers feel about their mobile phones and mobile phone supplier, and I carried out a mini-depth (micro-depth?) interview with a friend of mine who kindly agreed to be filmed.  Here are a few key findings:

• Pay as you go vs. contract: ‘I am on pay as you go because it is flexible and it is in line with my way of living. I don’t like any sort of commitment so pay as you go is exactly what I need‘

•  Mobile phone suppliers: I guess I am pretty faithful. People in my age group are more faithful than people may believe. I haven’t changed my operator since I have been in the UK because I don‘t have any specific complaints. You know what to expect from a pay as you go - the more you phone, the more you pay. It‘s pretty simple‘

• Texting vs. calling: ‘The main feature about my phone is to make phone calls but I do text a lot as well. It’s very useful when you want to send an address for example to someone.’

• Relationship with mobile phone: ‘My mobile phone is somewhere in between my best friend and a secretary because it contains useful information about my life such as my calendar, my phone numbers and things like that which I don‘t know by heart. My mobile phone is a bit like my keys - if I don’t have it, I have the feeling something could happen to me - if you have your keys, your wallet and mobile phone, you feel very safe. My mobile phone is like my keys - something I always have.’

In the ‘real world’, I would have conducted 10-15 hour long depth interviews or 4 mini-groups with a mixture of pay as go vs. contract users, followed by a quantitative study to segment the UK market. Enjoy!   

Further reading here

iPod mania

They have made a billion journeys on the Tube (London subway system) bearable and been flourished by the rich, famous and powerful.

The super slim music player with the shuffle function is simply the first indispensable style icon of the 21^st century, and last Tuesday (10^th April), the 100^th millionth iPod was sold.

Apple sold its first iPod in October 2001 and since then has introduced almost a dozen new models, including 5 generations of iPod, 2 generations of iPod Mini, 2 generations of iPod Nano and 2 generations of iPod Shuffle.

 Some cool facts:

•  To listen to all the 7,500 songs on a 30GB iPod can hold non-stop would take 375 days

• And if all the iPods were stood end to end, they would stretch roughly 10,000 km, from London to New York and back again – that would make a pretty cool bridge

• Even The Queen owns a silver iPod!

More Apple news over here.

Problem with comments on my blog

Hi guys,

I’ve recently noticed that a few comments that were left on my blog, somehow ended up in my spam folder. 

You don’t need to register with wordpress.com to leave a comment and all your comments should appear instantly on my blog. If you’ve left a comment but cannot see it, drop me a line.

I have been pretty busy lately but some pretty cool stuff will be online next week - more filming at the week-end and don’t forget to drop by on 04/18/07.

Have a good week-end!

Thought of the day

You can take the girl out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the girl…

18th April 2007